


The Search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack

by ILoveWater



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Adult Luna Lovegood, Angst, Camping, Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Fluff, Hermione blushes a lot, Hot Chocolate, I don't even know if you can call it that, Magizoologist Luna Lovegood, Ministry Employee Hermione Granger, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Stargazing, it's only a teeny bit of angst ok, wilderness expedition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveWater/pseuds/ILoveWater
Summary: The Being division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had finally finished what they hoped was the last of the amendments to the bill for house-elf rights, and Hermione was in desperate need of a break. Luckily for her, she happened upon a notice for an expedition into the Swedish forests in the Quibbler, just the change of scenery she was hoping for.Unluckily for her, she didn't realize that her expedition partner was none other than Luna Lovegood until she was already there.And the expedition goal?Finding the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood
Comments: 33
Kudos: 112





	1. Chapter 1 - Hermione

**Author's Note:**

> Yay :3 I'll be posting chapters as I proofread them, so hopefully every couple of days or so I'll have the next one up. No beta, please point out mistakes if you see uwu.

Hermione sat down on her couch, winding down from her rigorous day in the office. They had finally pushed through the most recent amendments to the bill for house-elf rights. She had made sure to close every loophole possible, rewriting and rewording whole sections so that it would finally appease the Wizengamot. The whole of the Being division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures went out and celebrated. Hermione ended up giving a speech at the party and was now thoroughly tuckered out.

Settling a bit more comfortably, her eyes caught sight of the newspapers on her coffee table. She had been in such a hurry that morning that she had not bothered to even glance at the headlines. Now was as good a time as any, she decided, and picked up the _Daily Prophet_. The headlines read of a robbery successfully thwarted by Aurors, and she smiled to herself when she saw Harry and Ron in the photo standing next to the relieved shop-owner. They had recently completed their training and started their work as partners in the field earnestly. She remembered sitting in the stands for the initiation ceremony, clapping loudly when they were awarded their badges. She was glad that they were able fulfill their wishes to become Aurors.

She flipped through the rest of the newspaper, cringing when she spotted Skeeter’s name. She had been approached by the woman multiple times during her campaign for house-elf rights, but Hermione rejected her every time. She wanted nothing to do with her. Hermione caught herself before she went down an especially anger-inducing train of thought that would _not_ help her wind down. She perused on, finding a short article concerning the bill for house-elf rights being pushed by the DRCMC Being division. She scanned through it, seeing her name and the names of her colleagues mentioned numerous times, along with members of the Wizengamot. She read through the rest of the newspaper at a leisurely pace, finally setting it back down. Her eyes flicked to the paper beside it, _The_ _Quibbler_ , with a bit of trepidation.

Hermione adored _The_ _Quibbler._ It was free from the Ministry’s agenda and was not a profit-hungry outrage machine. On the other hand, it had the eccentric touch of Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood, the proud editors of the paper. Every issue, without fail, had an article- often making the front page -about an interesting- often nonexistent, if you asked Hermione -magical creature, penned by the accredited magizoologist herself, Luna Lovegood. Hermione usually read the name of the creature and decided whether to read the article based off of that. If she believed that it could exist, she read it and often enjoyed most of it- not without a grain of salt, for she often commented to herself, and sometimes others, on the seemingly blatant and unbelievable lies and speculations sprinkled throughout -and if she had no doubt about the creatures possible existence, she skipped right past it to some of the other interesting but often more grounded pieces. And, well, if they weren’t grounded they sure were funny, even if they weren’t trying to be. She had developed a certain fondness and apprehension for _The_ _Quibbler._

One of her favourite parts of _The Quibbler_ were the ads, notices, and announcements section for the people. _The Quibbler_ had a very low bar for what could be submitted. She often read such ads as “In desperate need of mime to help break through invisible wall! Urgent!” and “Selling one-of-a-kind double-ended broom! Can be altered to children’s size!”. Hermione took her time reading through the notices, noting one in particular: “Looking for partner for expedition to Sweden! Please owl applications to the following address…” She mentally bookmarked the ad in her mind, deciding she would come back to it later.

It was at that point that Crookshanks decided to jump up into his owner’s lap. “Aww, there you are, little furball.” She scratched under the fluffy cat’s ear. He purred and settled down, Hermione continuing to read the newspaper with one hand, using the other to affectionately pet the half-kneazle. After another half-hour or so, Hermione decided to finally head off to bed.

***

Hermione was paying close attention to the Wizengamot debate around the most recent version of the house-elf rights bill. The atmosphere in the office was subdued but buzzing with expectation. With the bill out of the department’s hands, there was quite a bit less rushing. There were minor skirmishes, some infractions, crimes involving beings that had to be assessed. She floo-called and was floo-called by her friends during the week, getting congratulations and encouragement that the bill would surely pass. It was just a matter of time.

In the lull of the office, Hermione’s thoughts trailed back to the ad in _The Quibbler._ She had been in the Beings division for quite a few years now. She had studied numerous laws and books, had gone to speak with plenty of beings. She had done a lot of good work with the rest of the team, and she had put many sleepless nights into the house-elf rights bill. She had always been told that the practical side was just as important as the theoretical, and as she had been told by many people throughout her life, she could not always find the answer for everything in books. Perhaps it would do her some good to get out of the office and go on this expedition in Sweden.

Hermione walked over to the division head’s office. She gathered her thoughts before raising her fist to rap on the door.

“Please come in,” came a firm voice from inside the room. Hermione closed the door behind her as she walked in, situating herself in the chair across the desk. A significantly older woman was sitting behind the desk, holding a piece of paper and smiling pleasantly at Hermione.

“Why, hello there, Hermione. I hope all is well?” She and Hermione had grown close during the many meetings and late work days during the house-elf rights campaign. It was one of the most rigorous projects she had led during her time as head. She had come to regard Hermione as one of the most passionate and hard-working people she knew.

Hermione responded with a smile of her own. “Hello, Asper. Everything is quite good, with the bill out of our hands now. I am here to speak about an interesting project.” Asper raised her eyebrows in interest and motioned for her to continue. “I recently came across an advertisement requesting a partner on an expedition to Sweden. I want to apply, and I think I can get some work done there for the Beast division.” Precise and to the point. If Asper needed any more convincing, Hermione would be glad to write up a whole proposal. However, she was quite sure Asper would see reason.

Asper hummed in understanding. “That seems interesting. I’ll be sure to send an inquiry and send you the details later. I’m sure you’ll get accepted, but tell me when you get a response so we can iron out the details of this project.” She took out a piece of parchment and started scribbling away with her quill.

Hermione nodded in ascension. “I’ll be sure to come by when I get a response.” She stood up and walked over the door. “Have a good day, Asper,” she said, looking back a final time.

“You as well, Hermione.” She smiled. Hermione closed the door and went back to her desk. She spent the rest of the work day quietly filling out forms and writing up correspondences.

***

Hermione took a final glance at her letter.

_Greetings,_

 _I am deeply interested in the advertisement submitted to_ The Quibbler _about an expedition to Sweden. I have done extensive research into its native flora and fauna, both of the magical and non-magical variants. I also have a year’s worth of experience camping out in the wilderness, both in warm and cold climates. Moreso, I have training in first-aid and most other emergency situations, which could be very helpful during the expedition. I am highly adept in most forms of magic, if you might ever need magical assistance. In addition, I am a very quick learner, organized, and punctual._

_I have always loved learning, and would be overjoyed to accompany you on this expedition. I have herein enclosed a referral letter from the head of the Being division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures._

_Eagerly awaiting your response,_

_Hermione Granger_

Hermione gave the letter an approving nod. The majority of the letter was about her capabilities, as _logos_ often got her the farthest, but she had made sure to put in pathos and ethos as well. She had learned from her mistakes that straight facts alone often won’t persuade someone.

She would get the referral letter tomorrow from Asper, and then use one of the ministry owls to send the letter, as well as her office address. She scratched under Crookshanks’ ear when he grumbled as she stood up. For now, she would go to bed.

***

Hermione was looking through the DRCMC library, collecting books that could be useful for the expedition. She had mailed the letter a couple of days ago and had gotten a reply this morning. After regarding the impressive stack of books, she nodded decisively and headed to a nearby table. She picked up the first book, _In the Wilds of Sweden_ , and started reading. There were as many muggle animals as magical ones listed. Lynx, moose, bear, hare, arctic fox, Bowtruckle, diricawl, and the Swedish Short-Snout. There was, of course, a brief mention of rumored inhabitants of Sweden, including the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, but that was neither here nor there. The author could indulge in their own jokes, Hermione wouldn’t hold that against them.

She took another glance at the letter she had received.

_Dear Hermione Granger,_

 _It would delight me to have you on the expedition. You seem to be a very qualified person and will hopefully serve to be a great companion. I am delighted to know such a scholar as you partakes in reading_ The Quibbler. _The expedition will extend from the beginning of August to the end of September. I am planning to start in three weeks’ time, and would appreciate knowing which day fits you best. We’ll be meeting at Rosa Lee Teabag, a tea shop in Diagon Alley. If there is a problem with this arrangement, please owl me._

_In fact, owl me with any questions about the expedition. I’ll be sure to get back to you quickly. I should hope to quell any anxieties you would have about the coming trip._

She made her way down the stack through the day, taking heed of the request of the Beast division. She was sent a report on Bowtruckle activities and changes in the past decade. The division had a suspicion that the change could have something to do with the Muggle Phenomenon (although Hermione seriously doubted it was solely caused by muggles and that it wasn’t just the wizarding community wanting to heft off all the blame on them.) known as acid rain. It didn’t seem like it would be too taxing, all she would have to do is observe them for a bit and collect a few specimen to note any change in appearance by comparing them to the photos of healthy Bowtruckles. She made sure to do a bit more research on that topic too, just in case.

***

Hermione had continued her correspondence with the explorer for the next three weeks. She had inquired on many things. For example, which region would they spend their time in? The boreal forest, apparently. Would anyone else be joining them? No. What were the transportation arrangements? Portkey. Could she bring Crookshanks, her half-kneazle? Yes, why certainly! Procuring the food supplies? Hermione was welcome to pack any snacks she wanted, but that she shouldn’t worry about it. They would pack more than 2 months worth of food for both of them.

Now, Hermione sat at one of the tables in the quaint Rosa Lee Teabag. She had arrived half an hour early, going over all her supplies in her backpack. Crookshanks was lazing on the seat next to her, under an anti-allergy charm.

She glanced up to see who’s entered the tea shop, only to glance back down after waving when she realized it was just Luna. She hadn’t seen her in a while, actually. She wondered if Luna was just coming in for a snack, if not perhaps meeting someone.

“Hey, Hermione.” Hermione looked up at Luna’s greeting. Now that she was actually paying attention she was able to get a good look at Luna.

Luna’s hair was as long and pearlescent as ever, hiding the Dirigible plum earrings she apparently still wore. She noticed that Luna no longer carried her wand behind her left ear. She was wearing a dark green cardigan with a sunflower pattern over a grey shirt. There was a backpack strap hanging over her shoulder and a cage in her hand. Inside stood a grey screech owl, looking every bit as loopy as Luna did. 

She was also standing right at her table.

“Hello, Luna.” Her response was curt and she was looking around the shop. They should be here any minute now.

Luna took out a broken hand mirror from her bag. “The portkey will activate in 10 minutes. Aren’t you excited?”

Hermione’s train of thought made a full stop, forgot where the track was, and flew off into imaginary clouds. Fragments of memories started to rapidly fill up the space left behind.

_It was in_ The Quibbler _! How could I not- and I never thought to ask their name! And the whole week, sending letters back and forth, doing research-_

_The Crumple-Horned Snorkack._

“L-luna,” Hermione stumbles, trying to gather her composure. “What’s the goal exactly of this expedition?” Hermione feels dread slowly bear down on her.

“To find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, of course!” Luna gave Hermione a dreamy smile.

Hermione’s barely reorganized train of thought spiraled out once more. _How did I not realize it was Luna? Surely I would have known, writing back and for- the letters! Luna does not speak like that. And never leaving a name? How in Merlin’s name did I not question that?_

“The letters, Luna, did you have someone write the letters for you? And for another thing, why did you never sign off with your name?”

Luna brightened up at the mention of the letters. “Did you like them? I’ve been told so many times to make more formal letters when I’m working, so I decided to get a Quick-Quotes Quill: Formal edition! Ginny suggested it to me from when she was writing her application to the Daily Prophet.” She was staring at Hermione with shining eyes, as if she expected Hermione to be just as awed. “Oh, I guess I just forgot about the name thing. I just saw your name and forgot to be all professional with initials and all.” The way she said it made it seem like she often sent letters to friends without signing off. Hermione had a hard time doubting it was true.

Luna jumped. “Six minutes left!” she said to Hermione, and that’s when it all really crashed down for her. Was she really going to go on this two month long expedition to a forest in Sweden to help Luna find an imaginary creature?

Hermione stared at Crookshanks, who seemed unperturbed. In fact, he seemed to be in a subtly better mood. Hermione turned to the portkey, a broken hand mirror. It too, seemed unperturbed. Her fragmented reflection stared back at her with a surprisingly calm facade. Well, not surprising really, considering she had grown considerably better at looking calm, having to work and deal with the ministry. Hermione finally lifted her gaze to Luna, who seems to be the _most_ unperturbed. She actually looked quite excited, which is saying something considering that during Hermione’s time with her at Hogwarts always saw her in a dreamy, glazed-over state. 

Hermione sighed.

“I have decided that I will continue with my plans to accompany you on this expedition.” 

Luna looked a bit confused. “Didn’t you already decide when you sent me your letter?”

“Well, yes, but now I’ve decided again.” 

Luna shrugged. “Okay. Father always said you should always double check before you do something.”

Hermione wouldn’t tell Luna, but she was still absolutely sure that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack did not exist. In fact, she was going to _prove_ to Luna it didn’t exist on this expedition. Hermione would have confidently informed Luna of this, but she wasn’t quite sure Luna would be able to really understand what she was saying. She could recall once that her father had called her “narrow-minded”, and Luna had said something of a similar sort.

Luna started again. “Four minutes to go!” At that, Hermione quickly went through their joint inventory.

Luna jerked once more. “Only one minute left!” she said, Hermione still waving her wand over Luna’s bag. She quickly put away her wand, grabbed a hold of everything, and put one hand on the mirror.

With a pull at the navel, they were off.


	2. Chapter 2 - Luna

The portkey transported them into the middle of a forest. Luna slowly looked around, taking in the scenery. It brought back many fond memories. She set down the cage and let the owl out. 

Luna scratched at the ear of the owl absentmindedly. “You go on and look around for now, alright, Lorcan? Keep an eye out for our friend.” Lorcan hooted in concession and flew off.

Luna took out her wand and pointed at the cage. “ _ Reducio. _ ” She then quickly put it in a pocket, to be taken out later. Immediately starting off in a random direction, she payed no heed to her bemused companion.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Hermione finally said something. “Do you have a plan in mind? Are we just walking around randomly?” The second question was said with considerable dryness.

Luna hummed. “I’m following the Nargle trail,” she said, not elaborating.

Hermione sent her a confused look, finally walking next to her. “I thought you were looking for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?” Luna hummed in agreement. Hermione waited for an answer before huffing in exasperation. Luna finally decided to pick up on the cue, taking pity on Hermione.

“I’ve been developing a theory about the relations between Nargles and the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. They have a big role in keeping the Crumple-Horned Snorkack from human eyes.” Luna continued to amble forward, gently pushing underbrush out of the way. She was attuned to their magic signatures and could pick up on high concentrations, as well as physical marks they left behind.

Hermione opened and closed her mouth a few times, seemingly not sure what to say. In the end she decided on a resigned “Okay.”

They walked in the forest, Hermione casually looking around as she followed slightly behind Luna. There was a silence between them, one Luna was not too concerned with. She was steadily following the trail and quite happy listening to the mellow forest sounds. An hour or so passed before Luna recognized a sizeable increase in the magical signature, though the physical marks had not increased at all. She stopped, heedless of whether Hermione stopped in time to avoid bumping into her- which she did -, and set down her backpack. She opened it and fished around for the materials she knew she would need, placing them next to her and closing the bag. 

On the grass now lay a glass rod with a silver wire going through the middle and two iron caps on either end, a branch of mistletoe on a net of woven twigs, and an ornament. She picked up the rod in one hand and the rest in the other, slowly walking towards the patch of ground. She set down the mistletoe and ornament on the net, which was charmed to trap anything with a magical signature that wasn’t a human. Hermione looked on with incredulity and mild curiosity.

Luna took a couple of steps back and held out the rod from one end, slowly sweeping it over the clearing. It would tell her whether there were any man-made items in the clearing. The wire vibrated twice and Luna walked over to each to investigate. There was a half-buried plastic bag in one area and the other area was her trap.

“This doesn’t seem to be a very likely spot for a Nargle nest. There’s a chance that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack has been through here. This portion of the forest is quite far from the nearest road, but this could have been debris left by muggles. I’ll have to do some investigating.” Luna turned and walked over to one of the trees, not bothering to pick up her backpack off the ground or clean up her trap. She made quick work of climbing up the branches, sparing a lazy glance at Hermione when she stopped. The woman in question seemed to become more and more perplexed the more time passed in the company of Luna. Luna paid her no more attention than necessary, slowly swiping her rod up and down the tree, along with surrounding branches. She caught no more signals, and so gathered her thoughts as she climbed back down.

She turned to Hermione. “We’re on the right path,” she said, seeing it fit to inform her of their assured imminent success. 

Hermione suddenly started sputtering, finally coming back to herself. “You can’t just go around climbing trees! You’re not even wearing proper equipment! And you’re a witch, for goodness’ sake, couldn’t you have cast a few precautionary spells?” She was waving around her hands and sounded very irritated. Luna just gave her a dreamy smile.

“Don’t worry, I made sure it wasn’t a Wiggentree before climbing it,” she said, as if to reassure Hermione. Hermione, in turn, promptly cut herself off, eyebrows furrowing and jaw opening and closing.

She caught up with Luna’s train of thought once again. “Just because it doesn’t have Bowtruckles doesn’t mean you should disregard all caution! You could have fallen, or gotten a splinter, or had a piece of clothing caught on a-” She was promptly cut off by the sudden and loud rustling sound behind her. Hermione spun around and felt Luna brush past her as she walked towards the now  _ closed _ trap.

Luna approached cautiously, squatting down in front of the tied up net. She tried to feel for the magical aura, immediately noticing it wasn’t that of a Nargle. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on the aura, so she figured that it wasn’t a creature she had come in contact with recently, though it was surely magical as it had triggered the trap. Luna peered at the net, but couldn’t exactly see what creature it was. The trap  _ was _ moving though, as if something was trying to escape.

Luna felt the air around her shift as Hermione leaned down at her side. After a few more seconds of scrutinizing the bustling bundle, Hermione spoke up. “Can you tell what it is?”

Luna gave a slow shrug. “I know it’s magical, or else it wouldn’t have been caught,” was all she replied.

Hermione sighed in frustration. “Well no point in waiting for the answer to fall from the sky.” She took out her wand, pointing it at the trap. “ _ Petrificus Totalus! _ ” The movement inside the cluster ceased immediately. Luna, seemingly unfazed by Hermione’s unanticipated spell casting, pulled a leaf on one of the twigs, unraveling the woody contraption.

Hermione gasped at the revealed creature, which so happened to be a Bowtruckle. It was frozen stiff, and Luna cradled it in her hand. “You said you’re studying Bowtruckles, did you not?” Luna said with dreamy disconcern.

Hermione’s eyes widened before she nodded and quickly took her pack off her back. She shuffled her hands around inside until she made an “Aha!” sound and dragged out a small glass bottle, a bit bigger than the Bowtruckle, and a small brown marble. “I brought a larger terrarium to put in the tent, but for now this should be enough to transport it.” Hermione also brought out a bag of wood lice, sprinkling a few in the bottle. Luna handed over the Bowtruckle and Hermione gingerly placed in the bottle before chanting “ _ Finite Incantatem! _ ” to free the Bowtruckle. She then quickly closed the bottle, pleased that the Bowtruckle seemed too distracted by the wood lice to be properly panicked over its predicament. She hung the glass bottle on the side of her backpack before looping it back onto her shoulders. Then she leaned down and buried the marble.

Luna felt quite a bit curious, but she decided she wouldn’t ask about it right now.

Apparently Hermione was going to tell her either way. “It has a tracking charm on it so I can find the tree again when I need to bring the Bowtruckle back.”

Luna nodded but didn’t otherwise react. She packed up her trap and the other materials she had brought out and put on her own backpack as well.

Luna strode off out of the clearing, once again following the trail. She was quite sure that there had been a convergence in the clearing. They spent a bit more time walking and following the trail, though Hermione did seem to be in a much better mood. Luna hoped it made her more amicable, she didn’t want to spend the whole expedition in tense silence. She much preferred friendly silence. And talking sometimes. Talking was nice.

Another hour of walking in silence and not coming across any more spikes in the magical signature, and Luna finally decided that it was time to set camp for the evening. She stood in place for a bit, looking around, before walking off in a seemingly random direction. Hermione looked a bit confused, but decided not to say anything. After half an hour they happened upon a clearing large enough for the tent.

Luna sat her backpack down and dragged out the bag for the tent. She took out the fabric and poles and motioned Hermione over. Hermione looked a bit uncertain but followed her lead nonetheless. Together they spread out the canvas and set the poles into place. They did a few final adjustments, Luna with practiced ease and Hermione with barely disguised clumsiness. Luna didn’t understand why she was embarrassed; all tents were different. She wouldn’t expect her to be a master just because she had set up her own tent once.

Luna led Hermione into the tent, which was a lot bigger on the inside, as expected. Hermione seemed quite a bit awed by the interior. There was a worn wooden dining set to the side of the room, with small creatures painted all over the surface. The legs were decorated with different pawprints. The walls of the tent portrayed a forest scenery, spelled to move as a living breathing forest wood. In fact, the weather reflected that of the outside world. The floor was a very dark wood, distinctly undecorated, contrary to the rest of the room. A glowing orb hung from the ceiling by a glass chain, currently the warm yellow colour of the sun.

Four doors were fitted into painted trees, including the entrance. The other three led to the kitchen and the two bedrooms. One was Luna’s old bedroom, where Hermione would be sleeping. The other was her dad’s old bedroom, which before had been her dad’s and mom’s old bedroom, and would now be Luna’s bedroom. 

The funny thing was that her dad’s bedroom was always a lot more personalized than her own. When she had cleaned up the tent in preparation for the expedition, she noticed she really hadn’t had that much art hung up on her walls; most of it was in her dad’s room. She had still had a lot of stuff in the drawers; toys, knick-knacks, stuffed animals, snacks, old art supplies and sketchbooks. She didn’t strip the paint off the walls, deciding that it was fine as it was. It was  _ her _ tent after all, if her expedition partner had a problem with painted walls, they could put on a sleeping mask. Whether they liked how the tent looked really shouldn’t be at the top of their priorities.

“Do you want to have lunch?” Luna asked casually. She moved in the direction of the kitchen, opening the door and turning to see if Hermione was following behind. Hermione hummed her assent and continued to take in the newly discovered kitchen. The floor was paved with linoleum in different shades of blue. Whichever tiles the two women stepped on turned a matching shade of red. The walls were the pleasant colour of a morning sky, painted fluffy clouds magically floating along. Flying magical creatures decorated some of the clouds. The countertop was covered in paintings of different foods, and the cupboard had pictures of different ingredients, cutlery, and various kitchenware. It was so wondrous, there really was no doubt that this tent belonged to the Lovegoods.

Luna started to grab food items out of the cupboards. Hermione was still, at the door. “How does Crumple-Horned Soup sound?” And at that Hermione made what sounded a bit like a choking sound. A stroke of worry passed through Luna’s mind, but as Hermione didn’t keel over she let the feeling pass. 

When it seemed that she finally gathered herself, all Hermione ended up saying was was, “ _ What? _ ”

Luna nodded her head sagely. “It’s a tradition to eat Crumple-Horned Soup for the first meal of the expedition.” She continued to gather ingredients, and Hermione finally moved closer. On the counter Luna gathered potatoes, something that looked like it might be beetroot, carrots, a strange mound that could be cabbage, onion…

If one took a brief glance at the ingredients, the make-up suspiciously matched that of  _ Borscht. _ Of course, Luna was making a completely original recipe she and her father came up with. In addition, it was quite obvious that not a single ingredient even minutely resembled meat. And so, at Hermione’s lack of a cutting response about Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Luna was guessing that she too noticed the absence.

It seemed that Hermione was contemplating whether she should bring it up to Luna, whom she probably thought was absent-minded, or if she should just be grateful Luna wasn’t actually trying to feed her any ‘mystery meat’, at which Luna would have been insulted, as no meat could  _ ever _ be a mystery to her.

Luckily for Hermione, Luna took the choice out of her hands. “We of course are not using any Crumple-Horned Snorkack meat, for we honour them and pray to them for our luck in finding them with this great meal. Oh! Almost forgot the Crumple-Horns…” She reached once more into the cupboards and drew out a bag of Fusilli pasta. The label on the bag though was actually Crumple-Horns, since they poured the pasta out of its package into the labeled one…

If Hermione had ever actually had Borscht, she would have known that it was a strange addition, but since she didn’t comment Luna guessed that she had never had the soup in its traditional form.

Hermione took an audibly deep breath, and the words she said on the exhale actually surprised Luna quite a bit. “What can I do?”

Luna gave her a warm smile in response and started giving her directions. She hadn’t actually expected her to offer help on the first meal, much less this specific one, but was glad of it anyway. They worked in a somewhat amicable silence, wands waving this way and that, the air thankfully free of any arguments about the legitimacy of the creature the soup was based on.

The soup was finished in about half an hour and they poured themselves some soup. They moved together back to the main room, sitting next to each other at the dining table. The meal was mostly silent until near the end, when Hermione spoke up.

“I was wondering about our plans for the afternoon?”

Luna hummed in recognition. “I will convene with the forest about the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and any recent anomalies. I know you want to start on your study on the Bowtruckle, so you can stay to do that if you want. The convening doesn’t require any help, and you likely won’t be able learn anything from the process anyway. Most of it is in Drevbjark.” At Hermione’s confused face, Luna added, “That’s tree-thought.”

“Of course it is,” Luna heard Hermione mutter under her breath. Then, louder, as if she meant for Luna to hear her this time, “Yes, I think I’ll set-up my Bowtruckle habitat. Good luck with your.. Er… Convening.”

Luna nodded in response and they quietly finished their soup. She waved to Hermione on her way out of the tent, her backpack slung over her shoulders. Once outside she stopped to slowly look over the surrounding trees. After some deliberation, she went towards what she considered to be the tallest tree. Luna identified it as a larch, getting in between its branches to reach the trunk. She set her palm against the bark, slowly humming to gather her focus. She was searching for the soft aura of a tree, which was actually quite hard in and of itself, since trees grew in forests and barely ever move, and so their aura tended to blend in with the other trees and the plants growing at their roots. That was the reason she had to get right up against the trunk to be able to sense its specific aura. She finally found it, thick and a bit rough. She had chosen this specific tree because it had seemed the oldest, and so logically would have the thickest aura. 

And so finally, she started her convention. She coaxed the tree into letting her aura brush against its, following along through its roots into the surrounding trees. She was searching through the magical disruptions for any that invoked anxiety or suprise. Most people would think that trees don’t have feelings, but Luna knew that they just couldn’t express them in a human way. Feeling and thinking was very important to them; it’s almost all they could do.

Luna repeated the same process in a spiral pattern every few trees for two more hours. It was a lot easier to mark out where relevant disruptions happened by using multiple trees’ intersecting feelings. While a lot of her friends were of the idea that she was absent-minded, Luna actually considered her memory quite good. It was one of the two reasons Luna wasn’t using a map, the other being that it was very hard to mark out magical trails. 

With a final dab of goodbye, Luna started back towards the tent. It was half an hour later that she finally got back to the tent. 

The first thing she noticed was Hermione kneeling next to a terrarium. She had a notebook in her hand, jotting something down. The terrarium was made up of a cut log of Wiggentree, dirt, a leaf-container of water, and woodlice randomly spread throughout the container. The Bowtruckle was simply sitting on the log.

Luna walked over to Hermione, standing behind her and casually watching her for a few minutes. Finally, she spoke up.

“I’m about to place the wards. Would you like to help?” Hermione jumped, obviously not having noticed Luna approach.

She quickly regained her composure. “Of course! What type of wards?” She stood up and dusted herself off, setting aside the notebook and quill.

“Tree-wards against malice and mischief. They’re what dad and I usually did.”

Hermione nodded in response. “That seems about right. Which trees will we be using?”

Luna pointed out the candidates, then motioning Hermione over to one of them. “I’m not sure if you remember the runes, so I think it would be a good idea for you to see the specific set I’m using.”

Hermione hummed and watched Luna take two pieces of chalk- which were specially crafted for use on bark -out of her bag. They were light blue, the colour best suited for diffusion. She slowly drew out the rune on the trunk, then handed the second piece over to Hermione.

They slowly worked their way around the clearing, finally meeting at the last. They cast Impervius charms on each of the runes before speaking the incantation for the ward.

Soon after they had dinner, later separating once more. The rest of the evening was spent unpacking and scrutinizing the tent for any last-minute alterations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol so I just made up Drevbjark by mashing tree in Russian with bark and then spelled it funny but my pride at this accomplishment is immeasurable :"""D


	3. Chapter 3 - Hermione

Hermione sat up and stretched out her arms. She had been woken up by her 8:00 am wand alarm, and was now getting dressed up for the day. The past few days had been a bit unnerving, as Hermione always found Luna sitting at the table or sketching outside, seemingly waiting for her. She had at first set her alarm for 10:00 am, not expecting Luna to be an early bird. She was continuously surprised as she found Luna awake before her, even as she made her alarm earlier and earlier. She had even _asked_ Luna what time she was awake, to which the young woman only shrugged, which annoyed Hermione quite a bit, but she let it pass. It made a strange sort of sense to her that Luna would just wake up at some point, but what did _not_ make sense was how early she supposedly did!

Hermione finally made her way out into the main room, feelings of triumph starting to build in her chest. There was no one in sight! She then opened the door to the outside, finally letting a smile jump onto her face at the site of the empty clearing. She had finally figured out when Luna woke up! Now she just had to wait until she left her room.

Hermione busied herself by eating some breakfast and then taking some time to replenish the Bowtruckle terrariums. She had taken a specimen from another Wiggentree, and had both terrariums connected via a tunnel once she was sure that they wouldn’t react badly to each other. She was marking down behavior alongside her notes on their appearance, just to be thorough.

After she sprinkled some more woodlice in the habitats, she cast a quick _tempus_ , realizing that almost an hour had already passed. The days she had woken up at 8:30 am and 9:00 am Luna was already up, but maybe she was staying true to her word and waking up later?

Hermione gave it another half hour of jotting down more notes before walking over and knocking at Luna’s bedroom door. She had decided she would rather feel her ire if she was in fact asleep than go on not knowing if Luna was just holing up in her room. After some more insistent knocking, Hermione started to get worried. She hadn’t seen her in the kitchen when she had eaten breakfast, so there was no way she was hiding there. Taking a deep breath, Hermione inched open the door. If Luna had slept through her attack against the door, she would sleep through her opening it. If Luna was in fact awake on the other side, well, she couldn’t exactly blame Hermione for barging in after ignoring her!

As Hermione looked around the room, she was greeted with a familiar sight; the lack of any humans whatsoever. Not that she wasn’t thoroughly distracted by everything else in the bedroom. There were paintings and sketches covering the majority of the walls, and a messy desk covered in all types of paper and office instruments pushed against one of the walls. A bookshelf stood against the wall adjacent to the desk, filled with books of the old and new variant. The bed seemed neat enough, a clear indication of the absence of its owner.

Once Hermione realised what her absence meant, she rushed out. “Luna!” At the resounding silence that served as a response, she rushed out of the tent and into the clearing.

“Luna! Can you hear me?” She yelled, searching around for a familiar face. She walked a few more steps to the treeline, trying to peek into the forest. “Luna!”

“Yeah, ‘Mione?”

Hermione shouted and started back a bit, eyes wide at the face mere _centimetres_ from hers. Her eyes travelled up along the pale figure until they landed on the branch she was apparently hanging off of, her legs folded against the wood.

She stepped forward, regaining her composure and adopting an angry expression. “You shouldn’t scare people like that! What if I accidentally hexed you by reflex?”

Luna lazily raised a brow at her, or from Hermione’s point of view, lowered it. “You wouldn’t do that, ‘Mione. You think things through too much for that.” Hermione huffed a bit at that, but kept doggedly at her idea.

“Well, that isn’t the point. Where were you? I was getting quite worried. As a matter of fact, you do realize hanging off of trees is quite dangerous? And from what I can glean”- Hermione looked Luna up and down, casting a quick detection spell at her with her wand,-” you are not using any precautionary spells whatsoever. You do realize that if you fall and get a concussion, much less acquire brain damage, this expedition will be for nothing? You would need to get emergency aid and be out of commission for a few days, and if you actually damage your brain, I would have to take you straight to St. Mungos, and you would probably not be able to continue this expedition at all?”

At that Luna just smiled dreamily at Hermione, saying nothing in rebuttal. After a few seconds, Hermione realized how _close_ she actually was to the other. Their noses were almost touching! Actually, from this angle, Hermione could really look at Luna’s eyes. They were a beautiful silver colour with blue streaks. She wouldn’t mind spending days admiring them.

And then Hermione realized what she was thinking. She felt a warm flush blaze onto her face and clumsily took a few steps back. Luna too, she could see, was sporting a pink blush of her own, but she was still smiling merrily, if maybe a bit more goofily now.

“Well, as it was, I am awake now. What’s the plan?”

Luna nodded solemnly at that, but the effect really didn’t carry as she was currently upside down. She flipped herself back onto the branch, carelessly jumping down. She struck a perfect landing, but Hermione was still surprised she didn’t break anything. She wouldn’t have expected for Luna to be an athlete of any sort.

After brushing her hands together, Luna cleared her throat. Well, Hermione guessed that that was what she was doing, as the noise itself was quite weak. It was kind of cute.

“I think we should start off from the south-east today.”

Hermione nodded in response. She was starting to understand the strange sort of system Luna was operating on. Each day they would head out in a certain direction, following what Luna claimed to be a Nargle trail. They would make stops at what Luna claimed to be spikes in the magical signature, always with Luna climbing trees without any safety precautions, and then they would continue. Hermione decided to be helpful by mentioning any especially strange things to Luna, which the woman in question seemed to appreciate.

When it got around to lunchtime they either set a marker and apparated back to the tent, or they had a small picnic. Hermione didn’t care, so the decision was made according to Luna’s whims.

They, of course, eventually came around to talking during the walks, after the first three days. Mostly it was pointing out anomalies in their surroundings, or Luna sharing more information about the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and the equipment she used. Hermione hadn’t really got around to asking her about the ‘communicating’ she did with the trees, but she had witnessed it every so often when Luna deemed it necessary to gather more information. What information exactly, Hermione did not know, especially since the whole process was more or less silent, excluding Luna’s humming.

Sometimes though, Luna just asked Hermione questions. And then Hermione would ask her questions in return. Like now.

“How long are you planning on working in the DRCMC?”

“Probably until the house-elf bill is passed, along with a few more werewolf rights improvements. After that, I think I could get a lot more done from a higher position.”

Hermione deliberated a bit before asking a question in return. “How long do you plan to stay in Europe? I know you travel around a lot, for your research.”

“I’ll probably be around for another year or two. After that I plan on going to North America. Their government has it a lot more together, and their regulations on magical creatures are a lot looser in some parts. I think it’s because they’re really strict on the malicious ones so they don’t need to be on the peaceful ones.”

It was almost a normal conversation. Asking each other about life, their jobs.

“Speaking of which, you are going to deal with the Heliopaths in the Ministry, right? I know they’ve gone free after Fudge was removed, but it really isn’t safe.”

And then Luna had to go and remind her about _why_ they didn’t often have normal, benign conversations. And that this expedition’s whole reason for existing was to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

***

Of course, this didn’t stop her from starting conversations as well, regardless of how they devolved into Luna-inspired madness. 

They were having a picnic for lunch, sitting on a blanket with a spread between them. Luna volunteered to make each of them a sandwich, and since Hermione didn’t recognize more than half of the ingredients, she could do nothing else but agree. All the other Luna-approved meals they had had were delicious, so Hermione wasn’t too fussy about whether she might like it or not. Even though she helped prepare it when they were eating in the tent, she really couldn’t even classify what food group the ingredients she worked with belonged to.

Looking at the sandwich in her hands, Hermione was reminded of the food served in Hogwarts. She didn’t really notice it before, but most of it was decidedly muggle. The only especially wizard food she had noticed was pumpkin juice. It made her wonder if Hogwarts served muggle food to make muggle-borns comfortable, or maybe to introduce it to pure-bloods, or if the majority of the wizarding world really did eat muggle food and it was just the eccentrics like the Lovegoods who ate these strange foods.

Either way, the sandwich tasted really good.

“What’s this made out of?” she asked Luna, who was also currently eating her sandwich.

She swallowed her mouthful before answering. “Oh, let’s see… sourdough bread, klerish, coral lettuce, serdish tomatoes, sky cucumber, and bicorn cheese.”

Hermione stared at the sandwich in incredulity. The only thing that looked remotely like what Luna listed was the bread, and perhaps the coral lettuce, but it was decidedly pink and extremely crunchy.

“Well… that’s interesting. Why do you suppose we didn’t get this type of food at Hogwarts?”

“Well, wizards don’t really tend to mass produce food. And if it is, it’s most likely muggle food, since it’s lower maintenance. Not everyone has a band of domesticated albino peacocks like the Malfoys to tend to their magical gardens. So since Hogwarts has so many students, it has to buy muggle ingredients.”

Hermione nodded in understanding, shelving the information for later. Apparently though, Luna was not done.

“You did have a few options though. Professor Sprout actually had her own garden. Sometimes she gave me some of the harvests from it. I think she might have felt sorry for me. Ginny also showed me the entrance to the kitchens in fourth year, so I ended up asking the house-elves for snacks sometimes, especially when I felt homesick. It would take a couple of days, probably since they had to find all the ingredients, but they got it made.”

Hermione felt a lot of sympathy for Luna. As a muggleborn in Hogwarts, she had dearly missed her family and the familiar comfort of muggle technology and aesthetic. She was obviously extremely excited to learn magic, but in the first few months in first year, when she was awake late at night in her bed, she would cry. She had left the only people who cared about her behind, and she was in a new place with nobody to hold her hand and help her. She had tried to read as much as possible and get to know this new world, but in the end, she couldn’t learn everything from books. She made mistakes. She knew she wasn’t very good at making friends, and she never had any before, but at least she could go home to her family ever evening. In Hogwarts, she felt as if the floor could swallow her up and no one would notice except for the absence of her hand waving in class.

Thankfully, that all changed when Harry and Ron came after her in the girl’s washroom. It wasn’t the safest way to go about making long lasting friendships, but it had worked out. And she was glad to know that Luna had also found a friend in Ginny.

“When did you become friends with Ginny?”

Luna was quiet, lost in thought. “Well, we’ve known each other since we were kids, but we really got close in third year, I think. It was the first day of Ancient Runes, and well, none of Ginny’s friends were taking it. The Ravenclaws outnumbered the Gryffindors, and Ginny wasn’t close to any of her house that took the class. I guess she noticed that I was alone and decided I was a safe bet? In the end, she transferred to Care of Magical Creatures. It was for the best, I think. She didn’t really enjoy the class, but we were still friends outside of it. Later she confessed that she only joined as a bet against her friends.” At this point Luna flicked her gaze to stare into Hermione’s eyes. “I think there was another reason though. She wanted to do it because you did it. She told me a lot about the summer she spent with you and Harry, though the only meaningful interactions with Harry seemed to be staring at him and passing food during meals.” She took a breath. “She did talk a lot about you. And eventually about you giving her advice about Harry. I think she figured since you were his friend, and you took Ancient Runes, maybe she would too. And maybe she looked up to you a bit.”

Hermione considered Luna’s words. That was quite interesting. She knew Ginny had taken some of her words to heart, going on to date Corner after Yule, but she didn’t realize she had that much of an impact on the other woman. She was glad for it though, that she had driven her friend to try something outside of her comfort zone, even if she hadn’t done it on purpose. A lot of her friends tended to get too comfortable with what was expected of them.

“You said you took Ancient Runes, right? What was your other elective?” Hermione finally asked after a lull in the conversation.

Luna smiled dreamily, though Hermione could almost convince herself there was a bit of mirth there. “I took Divination with Professor Trelawney.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. I should have seen that coming. At least you didn’t take Arithmancy and Divination, that would have been something.”

“I did consider it, but I decided that runes were more applicable in my future plans. There was not a foreseeable time in my life where I would sit down at a desk covered in number charts and start doing complicated equations.”

“You know, considering your profession, I expected you to have taken Care of Magical Creatures.”

Luna’s smile turned into something that almost resembled a grimace, but on Luna nothing could ever really look that mean. “I was considering it. My first year I had heard a lot about Professor Kettleburn, and had actually visited him a few times. He had some really interesting stories to tell, though sadly didn’t believe in the Crumple-Horned Snorkack’s existence.” Hermione snorted, but Luna paid her no mind. “During second year I actually started exploring the Forbidden Forest by myself, inspired a bit by the professor and thinking that perhaps the Nargles had hidden my shoes there. As second years, we heard a lot of the stories from third years about the electives. We heard about the scandal in the Gryffindor-Slytherin class, and how afterward Hagrid only really did very mundane creatures. I ended up deciding to continue my study independently.”

After a moment, Luna added, “I’m actually quite glad. Since Hagrid was getting his classes to raise Blast-Ended Skrewts during my third year, and I wanted to learn about magical creatures, not how to care for a specifically-bred one, I think it all worked out. I still did end up learning about them, since some escaped into the forest. They got killed off quite quickly after that, though. The forest _is_ pretty dangerous.”

Hermione was not sure how to feel at that. On one hand, she was baffled that Luna, as a second year already wandering off- _alone_ \- in the forbidden forest, believed that the forest was too dangerous for a magical creature with extremely resistant body armor, a tail that could sting, a tail that could burn, and a mouth that could bite. She really couldn’t follow Luna’s logic sometimes.

“So, how _do_ you feel about Hagrid?”

Luna takes on a more serious expression. “I think me and Hagrid ”- “ _Hagrid and I_ , Hermione corrects inside her head. She’s gotten better at that. She only sometimes corrected her friends out loud now. Only _sometimes!_ -”really have a lot in common, actually. I don’t really agree with how he treats breeding magical creatures, but he’s _passionate_. Charlie told me all about Norberta. And when I did some official research in the Forbidden Forest and Black Lake, Hagrid was my guide. I appreciated it for the lake, but it really was quite silly in the forest. I’m pretty sure I ended up showing him more there than he showed me. He’s a kind fellow. We pet some unicorns, but disagreed on whether ghosts could see Thestrals on principle. I argued that ghosts technically witnessed their own deaths, Hagrid argued that that would only be true if they died while looking into a mirror…” And then Luna started on a topic that was, while interesting, devolving further and further into Luna-brand logic, such as how someone could theoretically witness someone’s death by taste alone. 

It was getting so silly that Hermione even started to contribute to the one-person discussion, and she couldn’t stop smiling.


	4. Chapter 4 - Luna

They were having another picnic. It has been a couple of days since the last one. Hermione was getting better at noticing things. Luna was quite pleased.

The spread on this picnic was different; there were no sandwiches. There were two salads out, one black and sparkly, and the other one looked like a normal fruit salad, but also quite sparkly. There was also a bowl of rice and mushrooms. Luna had prepared them the evening before to wind down. She actually found cooking quite relaxing.

The last thing she took out of her backpack was a bag of wild berries. Hermione raised her eyebrows at it. Luna had been casually picking them during the walks, planning to use them to make something. She had set this bag aside just for eating though, and was quite happy with the mix. She was already enjoying some.

Hermione, on the other hand, looked extremely wary. It seemed like all the progress they had been making over the past week was undone. Up until this point she was actually getting Hermione to eat first and ask about ingredients later, but now it looked like Hermione wouldn’t even ask about the berries, much less eat them.

“These are berries I picked around the forest. I washed them, so they should be fine. None of them are poisonous.” Hermione still didn’t look convinced, so Luna let out a sad sigh. She wouldn’t force the other woman to eat them, but it really was a pity. You really couldn’t find most of these berries down in the city shops.

She left the issue alone and they both continued with the meal. At least she hadn’t refused to eat the rest of the food laid out; though she was reverting to her habit of criticizing each spoonful before it went anywhere near her mouth.

Luna started in surprise when she realized Hermione had actually taken a spoonful of berries. She was treating it to the same ritual as everything else that had been going down her throat for the past half hour, but she was _eating it_. Luna felt a smile climb up her face. It seemed not all progress was lost.

“They are… interesting,” Hermione finally said. “What are they? I don’t recognize any of them.”

Luna’s smile grew fond. “The sweet red ones are krelberries, the dark green ones are pirnberries, the yellow ones are sherberries, the yellow-blue ones are trinberries…” Luna continued listing off the different specimens and Hermione actually looked quite interested.

***

That evening Luna took out some ink-soaked parchment and her augurey-feather quill. These were the traditional materials that she and her dad used when writing and exchanging letters. It was well known that Augurey feathers repel ink, so they decided to write empty space onto an ink-soaked parchment. It was really quite fun, if not needlessly time-wasting. And well, Luna and her dad could never ascribe those two terms to anything they did.

She wrote to him about their progress concerning the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and Nargle trails, and she wrote to him about the trees and the runes. They always made adjustments when they went out on expeditions, and just because he was now kilometers away and Hermione was now involved did not mean the alterations would be put on hold. And, of course, she wrote to him about Hermione. About the Bowtruckles, about their talking, and of course about her suspicions that Hermione still didn’t believe in the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. She wrote about how the tent was fairing, about how it felt to be in his old room, and about living with someone who tried to wake up at the same time as her.

When she was done with her letter to her dad, she wrote to Ginny, Neville, and her other friends. She didn’t have that many, but she did make some during her studies. She wrote to Hagrid and Rolf. For her friends she used normal parchment and a chicken-feather quill. Whenever one of them decided to joke about her writing quality, she liked to say that it was only natural to write in ‘chicken scratch’ with a chicken quill. It was the spirit of the chicken.

When she really tried though, her writing could be quite pretty. It was the type of writing she used on birthday letters when she couldn’t make it to visit her friend. They always wrote back that they were glad she finally bought a quill that cleaned up her script, and sometimes she let them think that’s what she did. After all, what did it matter? It was the thought that counted.

Luna let Hermione know that she was planning to send out Lorcan with some letters later, and that if she was planning to send any out today that she should finish them by dinner.

***

The next morning Luna actually woke later than Hermione. She left the tent to find Hermione sitting on the ground, a couple of wild birds around her and some seeds in hand. She was trying to get the birds to walk up to her. Maybe she was trying to teach them confidence? She always seemed like she wanted to teach someone something. Luna wondered if Hermione ever thought of being a teacher. 

Luna walked over to Hermione and sat next to her. Her side was warm against the cool morning air. “If you want them to come up to you, you should try making some bird noises,” she said quietly, her voice a bit sleepy. The sun was nice.

“Mmm?” Hermione sounded a bit curious, though still disbelieving. It seemed like Hermione actually valued her input, at least where animals were concerned, since Luna _was_ a magizoologist. She still held a great amount of skepticism towards Luna’s words of wisdom, but she was no longer refusing to even hear them.

“That one is a common quail. Pass me some seeds?” Hermione obliged and Luna made the appropriate bird call. The quail slowly made its way over and eventually pecked at the seeds in Luna’s palm. “And that one’s a black grouse. You have to make a sound like this,” and Luna made a sound that sounded a bit like a distorted cackle. “You should try it.”

Hermione nodded and tried to make the sound in her throat. She flushed a bit in embarrassment, but was not put off from her goal. “Like that?”

Luna repeated the sound. “Try to do it at a higher pitch.” Hermione tried again and Luna nodded at her in congratulations. “Yeah, like that.” She had a dreamy smile on again and Hermione seemed to flush even further and scooted away to the side. Luna was quite disappointed to lose such a nice source of warmth. At least they were still sitting next to each other.

Hermione started making the sounds again and finally coaxed the grouse to her hands. Luna was unable to look away from the large and unguarded smile Hermione had on her face. It was the type of smile you thought you could only see on a kid who was laughing and saying, ‘ _See! I did it!’_ But Hermione wore it like she had just figured out how to make birds dance a perfect ballet.

She was just so… beautiful.

***

After the daily exploration of the Nargle trails they finally returned to the clearing. Hermione was about to walk over to her Bowtruckle terrariums when she stopped. Luna waited curiously as Hermione turned to her. She looked like she was fighting over something with herself.

It seemed like she finally made up her mind. “I would appreciate if you looked over the Bowtruckles for me and tell me any off things you notice. I’m planning to release the pair tomorrow morning, and have written down all the observations I could see, but I…” she paused for a second, as if deliberating on what to say, “...could use another pair of eyes.”

Luna smiled, “Of course.” She didn’t know whether to feel resentful or despondent about how Hermione refused to acknowledge her career and area of expertise. Half the time it was like Hermione forgot that Luna was the one to organize the expedition, and the other half the time she remembered that fact and the subject of the expedition all too well. Sometimes Luna really liked Hermione, and sometimes she just made Luna feel really tired.

For now, she would just push all those thoughts out of her head. Hermione was her friend first and foremost, regardless of how close they were, and she knew in her heart that Hermione was putting in an effort. She could put in more, but she would make do with what she had. She knew she had her eccentricities, and perhaps Hermione didn’t agree with all her beliefs, but this was _her_ expedition, and she was going to enjoy it. And she was going to enjoy Hermione there too, whether she liked it or not.

She sat down in front of the glass containers, Hermione diligently sitting down next to her with her notebook and pheasant-feather quill. She was close too, like they were in the morning. Luna relaxed a bit into the warmth. She watched the little creatures move and scuttle around for a bit. Hermione passed her the notebook she was holding, and Luna quickly read through the notes. Thorough observations on behavioral and aesthetic differences were written down. One glaring absence she noticed was the differences in the habitat. Keeping them in her artificial habitats probably made Hermione think they would be inconclusive and irrelevant, but Luna knew better. She had noticed some differences not noted about the appearance, though. Luna looked at the photos stuck to the pages of the notebook. Though they didn’t have much artistic merit, they had good lighting and captured the Bowtruckles well. She handed back the notebook to Hermione.

Luna leaned towards the creatures, carefully scooping up a wood louse and a Bowtruckle. She nodded in confirmation as she trailed her fingers along the Bowtruckle’s hands. Her observation was correct.

“These ones have thicker and leatherier bark. The roots are more brittle and rough.” She put the little guy back into the terrarium and turned to face Hermione. “How often are you refilling the water?”

“Every morning. They deplete about two thirds of the containers by then.”

Lunna hummed. “They’ve been drinking a lot more water from the container than normal. In fact, it’s quite strange that they moved it to be covered from the sky. Usually Bowtruckles gather a lot of water from the morning dew and opportunistically gather moisture from other plants when they don’t get it from the insects they hunt. Even in captivity, it’s strange that they are drinking so much water. They’ve barely touched the greens you left in the enclosures. I think you should look at their trees when you return them. It could give you a lot more insight.”

Hermione was quickly noting down what Luna was saying until her last comment. She looked back up to Luna’s face. “Do you think so?” She seemed to mull over the thought for a few minutes, continuing to write notes into her notebook. Finally, she closed it and face Luna again. She took a breath.

“Would you come with me tomorrow, when I return them? I would really appreciate your input.” She said the second part slower, but she gave no other sign of her possible reluctance. Luna felt something warm in her chest at that.

She smiled brightly. “I’d love to.”

She had a feeling that even if Hermione still wasn’t past her if-you-don’t-believe-what-I-believe-than-you’re-wrong-or-dumb phase, she would just do everything she could to help her along. And maybe showing her that she did believe in some of the same facts that Hermione believed and that her knowledge was helpful would do that. Even Luna could admit that not all her facts were extremely useful to the general population.

***

Luna was sitting on a tree branch again the next morning, talking with the birds. She wasn’t really learning anything useful, but it sounded quite nice. Hermione finally walked out of the tent, and remembered to look up this time.

“You know, one of these days you’re going to fall off.” Luna jumped down and smiled in greeting.

“Are you ready to head out?” she said in lieu of acknowledging her comment.

Hermione sighed in exasperation. “Yeah. Side-along apparition? I can’t really give you the coordinates.” Luna’s smile widened just a bit and she hopped over to lightly hold onto Hermione just above her elbow. She was warm. 

After apparating to the tree Hermione let the first Bowtruckle out of its jar. Then, she took out her notebook and quill. “Could you list off the incongruences for me?”

Luna took a long look at the tree. “Well, there are actually fewer Bowtruckles than there usually are on the tree. And the tree trunk looks empty of any damage possibly done by Bowtruckles. The sparsity of the lower branches is also a really unhealthy sign, but it must be that acid rain you wrote about.” Luna took a couple of steps forward until she could put her hand against the tree. She frowned. “And there are also a lot less insects than there should be, especially on a magical species. If me and Hagrid”- Luna could almost _feel_ Hermione twitch behind her -” had found a tree like this in the Forbidden Forest, we would have gone straight to Professor Sprout.” Luna looked around at the surrounding trees. “Though it does seem to be holding up better than the non-magical ones.”

Hermione approached her and stood to her side, staring hard at the tree. “Do you think there’s something we can do? I’ve studied as much of the muggle information on acid rain as I could, but there was barely anything on it in the wizarding records. Even spell work to do with acidity levels was scarce.”

Luna grimaced in sympathy. A lot of the wizarding population was ignorant of the effects of muggle-developed technology, her notwithstanding. Before her correspondence with Hermione, she had never heard of acid rain. Whenever she had come across sick trees on her travels, she had just used basic plant-nursing spells she had learned. If she had known the cause, she could have worked to cure that instead of just the symptoms. Well, herbology wasn’t her main field of study, so she couldn’t be expected to know too much, but plant-animal hybrids like the Bowtruckle really necessitated some foraying outside her comfort zone. You could never know too much.

“I know a tree nursing spell or two we can use. I’m afraid I don’t know one long-range enough to help the whole forest, but I did use it on a couple of bad looking ones during my conventions already.” Luna demonstrated the spells to Hermione and helped her with the wand movement.

Hermione thanked her and jotted down a few more things in the notebook. From over her shoulder Luna noticed that she also wrote down the spells. She had seen it the other day, but now that she thought of it, she really liked Hermione’s handwriting. It was a bit messy and _really_ small, but the letters and words were almost perfectly proportioned, and the writing was straight across horizontally. The previous page had differently colored writing, so Luna guessed that she came back to her notes to make adjustments.

After Hermione finished up she summoned back her marble and they apparated to the other tree, repeating the process. This one was a bit healthier than the other one, which Hermione made a note about out loud to check back later and compare the habits written down for both Bowtruckles.

Hermione stuffed the marble into a pouch before dusting her hands off on her pants. “I’ll probably gather a couple more in a day or two. I’ll have to clean out the tanks and clean up my notes.” Hermione turned to face Luna. “Should we apparate back to the camp?”

Luna took a moment to think about her question. She walked up to one of the other trees and put her hand against it. Feeling around the network revealed that a disturbance had happened nearby. She concluded that they might as well go investigate it. Perhaps it could lead to a fresh Nargle trail. The ones they had been following so far hadn’t gleaned much, and most of them ended in nests or scattered, most likely from predators. There were some that still held promise, but Luna decided they could wait. If any of them led to the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, it was extremely unlikely that the Nargles would abandon it. The likeliness of there being something more interesting than the Crumple-Horned Snorkack to lure the Nargles away was very low.

“I think we should head out from here. There’s something in that direction.” Luna pointed off between the trees. Hermione looked perplexedly over, but obviously didn’t see anything. She didn’t ask. The last couple times Luna remembered her asking, she had responded with variations of “something interesting.”

They made their way through the underbrush, Luna stopping to feel through a tree every so often. It was an hour later that they finally came upon the disturbance. It was sadly not a spike in Nargle aura, but it was strange nonetheless.

When they happened upon the site, Luna looked around, curious to find the fruits of their labor. It was when she finally looked up that she realized exactly how strange the situation was. Up on the tree were a couple of koalas. There were a couple of koalas in a boreal forest in _Sweden._

Hermione gasped, seemingly also having found what Luna did. “What are koalas doing in a swedish forest?” She immediately started inching her way forward.

Eventually she stopped at the bottom of the tree, clearly at a loss. Luna walked over to stand beside her. Hermione was still, though Luna could hear her muttering under her breath, and when she looked at her her eyebrows were furrowed in thought. “Okay… so… native to Australia… this is obviously not normal… Could they be a magical variant that lives in Europe?” Hermione said the last part louder, turning to meet Luna’s stare.

Luna aimed a critical eye at the creatures. She knew of a couple of magical koala lookalikes from her reading, but none of them were native to Europe. The closest was native to the Amazon and was distantly related to sloths. “No, there are no creatures like the koala that live in European forests. There should not be koalas here. Maybe the Nargles brought them? There’s not a trace of Nargle magic here though… which is actually quite strange, considering the mischief of this situation.”

Hermione looked like she had stopped taking her seriously towards the end of her rambling. She sighed. “Well, I think the best course of action would be to get them down. I’m not sure what we should do after that, though.” Hermione was silent again. It was a minute later that she let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you have any suggestions? They’re not magical, so I’m not sure if they fit into your area of… expertise.”

Luna hummed. “Well, the Department of Mysteries seems to fit. They have a subdivision for Mysterious Appearances. I’ve handed off a few spontaneously appearing trombones to them. They don’t really have parameters for what you can and can’t bring.”

“Well, it is called the Department of ‘Mysteries.’ That makes sense,” Hermione commented.

“Yeah, and I think I actually have some animal enclosures in the tent storage that are still stocked for mammals. It wouldn’t be too hard to fix them up. We can take them in and hand them over tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” Hermione lifted her gaze back up to the koalas. “Now there’s just the question of getting them down.

“For animals up on trees, the best option is usually to pull them off with _mobilicorpus_ and then use a sleeping spell on them so they don’t get panicked and violent.”

“Right. I’ll take the right one, then.” Luna was surprised that Hermione took her word for it. Pleasantly surprised. She nodded, smiling on the inside. It wouldn’t do to scare off Hermione after such a big step.

They carefully lowered the koalas and sent them into a light sleep. “Apparating tends to aggravate most animals, we’ll have to take them back on foot.”

“Okay.” With that, they turned and set off back to the camp. Well, Luna turned first as she was the one that knew which direction to go in. She had an excellent sense of direction.

A couple of hours passed before they stopped to rest and have lunch. The koalas were small, so the spell wasn’t too straining, but suddenly dropping them from magic exhaustion was not something they were willing to risk. They had a picnic again, in no way willing to risk leaving the koalas alone in the forest to apparate back to camp. After half an hour they set back on course and finally returned to the site in the afternoon light. 

They walked into the tent and Luna walked up to one of the painted on trees, trailing her finger along one of the creases in the bark. The tree split at the crease to reveal a hidden storage room that was actually bigger than the main tent area, and the ceiling was twice as high. When Luna and her dad had went shopping for a tent, they weren’t looking for something very fancy and luxurious. What they wanted was a lot of space, and especially the type that could be hidden. They had very good reasons for wanting such a thing, but they knew that Fudge and his heliopath army wouldn’t agree, so they made sure not to tell anyone that they had it or even why they needed one. Luna was sure Hermione wouldn’t think anything of it though, as there were also many perfectly legal reasons to have a storage room with a hidden entrance. And maybe Luna was willing to trust Hermione with this. She was crazy about the government and laws and regulations, but she was also a good friend.

Luna glanced behind her to see if Hermione was following and saw the other’s awed expression. Luna started looking for the crates that were needed, leaving Hermione to her exploration. There were boxes and different containers lining the walls, so much so that it was almost impossible to see their colour. The items were organized into groups, but there wasn’t exactly an ordering system, and Luna had barely been in the room since the last expedition, other than when she went in to do a bit of cleaning and organizing before this trip. She wandered about for the better part of an hour until she finally found what she was looking for. It was a fairly large crate from the outside, but it was even bigger on the inside. It was currently equipped with water, a temperature regulating charm, a charm that matched lighting from the daylight cycle, a caterwauling charm that’s triggered if the animal escapes, a sound cancellation charm against the outside, and some bedding. She took out the crates and carefully laid a koala in each before going off to see if they had any eucalyptus leaves stocked. After about twenty minutes of searching and enlisting Hermione’s help, they still couldn’t find any. 

Luna considered the situation. “While I don’t think they’ll die if left without food for today, they already have little energy as is, and we don’t know when they last ate. I think it would be a good idea to at least leave some fruit in each crate.”

“I don’t know much about koalas, but that does seem like the best thing we can do considering the situation at hand,” Hermione replied. They quickly found some fruit and dropped them off near each koala. Luna cast a quick diagnostic charm on both, telling Hermione that they would naturally wake from the spell in an hour. After that, Luna gently closed the lid on both crates, which had openings at the top for air circulation.

They left the room together, Luna closing the tree back up. Luna led them in dinner preparations and they finally congregated at the dining table with their spread of potato salad, coleslaw, and ligaru, which looked a lot like red and green lasagna.

“We should probably go to the Department of Mysteries tomorrow. Apparition is still a bad idea, so that’s not an option.”

“That’s true. That leaves portkeys, floo, and brooms.”

“Floo is a bad idea, having to hold the crate while doing it and all. Portkey is much better than apparition, but we’d have to get a portkey. I think I could find a couple of brooms in storage, so that seems like the best idea.”

“That is certainly most prudent. I’ll assume you know the way to the subdivision of… Mysterious Appearances, was it?”

Luna nodded in affirmation. “You know, I think they have one for Mysterious Disappearances too. Or maybe that’s in the Auror Department? Or maybe they both have one.”

Hermione sighed. “I’m sure they do, Luna.”


	5. Chapter 5 - Hermione

Luna was waiting for her at the table when Hermione woke up. That was a first. Hermione was no longer surprised with Luna waking up at seemingly random times, but never before had she just been sitting at the table. At her feet sat both crates, and leaning against the table were two surprisingly good looking brooms. They looked barely used.

“Good morning,” Luna greeted. In her hands was a book, and from the pictures Hermione could see it was most likely about magical creatures.

“Good morning,” she replied. “I need to have breakfast, but after that we can head off?”

Luna hummed in acceptance. Hermione rounded up some pink scones, jam, a knife, and a plate from the cupboards, taking her trove back to the table. While she ate, Luna explained her ideas about using some rope to tie the crates to the brooms. Hermione suggested they use a freezing charm to keep the ropes from loosening and Luna agreed.

After she cleaned up her meal they left with the brooms and crates for the clearing. There they fastened each crate to a broom, first checking on the animals inside. They cast a sleeping charm on both, wary that they might accidentally escape or knock over the crate mid-flight.

“How new are these brooms?” Hermione asked.

“We got them the summer of my third year, so they’re pretty old.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. The brooms did not look anywhere close to that age. “Really? I mean, I remember the brooms the gryffindor team used during school. They looked nothing like this.”

“They’re Transylvanian Barbs, so most of Britain didn’t even know about their existence. Most broom companies from outside Britain don’t tend to do quite well in our market, I noticed. A vampire we were acquainted with suggested the model to us, as it had just come out that year and was being used by the Transylvanian National Quidditch team. We bought them for if we ever needed them during our expeditions, but we never ended up using them after the first test flight. Don’t worry, I used a broomstick servicing kit on them earlier.”

Hermione eyed the brooms warily, but concluded that they should hold up fine. Together they boarded their brooms and took off in the direction of the Department of Mysteries. The air was chilly, but they had both grabbed scarves before leaving, so they wouldn’t catch anything.

After two hours of flying they touched down in a quaint town in Denmark, stopping to have a break at a local restaurant and check on the koalas. They explained that they were tourists and luckily the serving waitstaff was willing to serve them in English. Hermione was glad she didn’t have to break out her rudimentary Danish or her translation spells. As an employee of the ministry, knowing multiple languages was really quite beneficial, so she had learned to speak Irish, Scottish, and Welsh quite well, but her understanding of other languages native to Europe was limited to basic greetings and ‘thank you.’ Translation spells, on the other hand, could get very obvious and were not made for using with muggles.

After that they spent another three hours before finally reaching the Department of Mysteries, where Luna took charge in leading them through winding corridors until they reached what looked like a lobby, ‘Office of Mysterious Appearances’ in silver letters above the receiving area. There were two rows of chairs to the side, a third of which were occupied, and on the other wall were a great amount of slots of various sizes. 

“That’s where people drop off the items. If you want their investigative report on the item when they’re done you leave your name on the form.” Luna pointed to the basket of papers bolted to the wall. “The desk is for reporting appearances that couldn’t be brought in and for drop-offs that are alive or need careful handling.”

“Ohh.” Hermione was looking around, intrigued. She wondered how often things mysteriously appeared around Luna, and how often Luna might have just not remembered how the things appeared.

They approached the desk after getting a form, brooms floating behind them. On the wall beside it was sign reading ‘Office of Mysterious Disappearances is in room 304B, on the second floor.’

Hermione took the initiative to fill out the form while Luna explained the situation to the Unspeakable at the desk. She signed off her and Luna’s names on the form before walking over and sliding the paper over. Luna had apparently also filled out another form, and from what Hermione could say it must have been about the crates being returned after the investigation. Once everything was sorted out they undid the spell on the ropes and handed over the cargo.

Since they were no longer laden with their burden they decided to floo from the ministry to a wizarding town in Sweden Luna had apparently been to once. They had dinner at one on the local grills.

After that they finally apparated back to the clearing and went their separate ways before heading to bed.

***

“ _Stupefy!”_ Hermione started awake just as the words left her mouth, the blanket she was using thrown across the room and looking charred and definitely in tatters. Hermione sighed, dragging the hand that wasn’t holding her wand in a white-knuckled grip down her face. She had done it again, and this time the blanket had finally given under the pressure. She had heard a noise and had reacted by instinct. She’d noticed that happening a lot when she was somewhere new after the second war. The problem was probably even more exacerbated by the fact that she was in a tent again. It seemed to matter little to her high-strung nerves that the tent looked completely different. She had considered locking her wand up or casting a noise insulation spell during the night, but her more than healthy dose of paranoia kept her from doing so. She was really just hoping that she would get used enough to the environment that she would stop having these… episodes. She groggily stood out of bed, forcing her wand hand to relax, and walked over the blanket. She had already used _reparo_ quite a few times on the poor thing, and the damage had never been this bad. It seemed the spell was losing its effectiveness the more she had to use it on the same thing. She was quite certain it would just cease to work at all this time, but she had to try.

“ _Reparo.”_ She flicked her wand at pieces of fabric, and though they vibrated a bit and pitifully tried to move closer together, they collapsed back to the ground with a soft noise that sounded a lot like an exhale. Hermione sighed in dejection. She slowly turned herself around and left the room, entering the main area. The ball of light was a very pale white in the night, softly illuminating the dark forest scene. The colours had changed to reflect the outside world, and although there were no owl hoots or cricket noise, the atmosphere was very much there. Hermione briefly considered walking up to every tree and trailing her finger down every possible crease in the bark before throwing that idea as far away as she could. She did not want to be awake enough for that. She walked over to the door that led to Luna’s room and lightly knocked on it. There was a _miniscule_ chance that Luna was awake at this time. Who knew, perhaps there were mornings where she was already up at 2 am.

Sadly for Hermione, there was no answer, and she realized she would have to commit one of the most atrocious acts any human could ever do. 

She would have to wake Luna up.

She slowly opened the door, still not liking the idea. There was a soft glow from a nightlight on top of the bookshelf, revealing the sleeping woman in her bed and the empty owl cage on the nightstand.

Hermione walked over to Luna, but not too close. Who knew, maybe Luna developed the same instinctive reactions that she had after the war. 

“Luna?” She said quietly. “Luna?” Hermione repeated, a bit louder. A third time, even louder, and finally Luna responded.

“Hmmugh?” The woman groaned. Hermione repeated her name and Luna half opened her eyes.

“Do you have any spare blankets? Mine is… broken.”

Luna stared at her for a bit longer, seeming to finally come to a conclusion. Hermione was ready for her to tell her directions, or maybe even get up and show her where to go.

What she did _not_ expect was Luna to open up the blanket on the other side of the bed and close her eyes, as if to get back to sleep. Hermione stared at her, not quite awake enough to really process what was going on. Was Luna… inviting… her… into… her… bed? Hermione stared for a bit more, but Luna did nothing else. Hermione considered going back to her room, but it was a very small thought, perhaps the type of thought she would be giving more weight were she more in the mood to consider such a thing. Perhaps she would have even been spluttering at the thought of sharing Luna’s bed with her, but she was tired, and the option was open…

Hermione pulled the blanket over herself, snuggling into it. It was quite soft. It was fluffier than the blanket she had at home, but it was… nice. Hermione’s back was to the night light, so she could barely make out Luna’s face from the shadow her body was casting on the other. She also looked very… soft in the ethereal glow. Her hair was spun silver in the light.

Slowly but surely, Hermione found herself falling asleep to the soft rhythm of Luna’s breathing.

***

Hermione woke to a light shuffling. She groaned, burrowing further into the middle of the bed. Suddenly, she stopped. This did _not_ feel like the bed she had been sleeping in for the past two weeks. In fact, she was far warmer than she usually was in the morning. _As a matter of fact,_ she was stopped by a very warm and squishy weight in her sleepy path. Even more, she realized that she had very much attached herself to the form, arms around it and leg swung over it and _all._ She was very slowly coming to conclusions, though her reluctance to meet reality was causing her to stall. She was _very_ comfortable. She internally chided herself for her behaviour and opened her eyes.

Her thoughts came to a full stop, exactly what she was avoiding suddenly crashing into her like freight-train with no brakes. She was _very much_ in not her bed, cuddling a _very much_ not her pillow, legs intertwined with what were very much _not her blanket_. In fact, she was in Luna’s bed, cuddling with Luna, with their legs in a warm tangled mess. And Luna looked _very much_ close to waking up. It was a wonder she had woken up before the other, but that was something to focus on later.

And other than being half-awake, Luna also had a very messy bed head. And her pajama shirt was hanging off her shoulder. And her eyes were pretty and sparkly as she rubbed them awake with her palms. And her breath was really quite warm puffing against her face.

Hermione gave a panicked something that sounded halfway between a strangled laugh and shout. She was blushing madly and was getting further tangled up in her frantic attempts to escape the situation. She fell on her face again and Luna, who was now finally sitting up, burst out laughing.

“Haha, yes very funny…” Hermione tried to sound intimidating but ended up sounding very breathless and high-pitched. She looked up to glare at Luna, trying to regain her dignity, when her breath caught.

She had no idea where the sunlight was coming from, but Luna’s hair was glistening. It fell in tangled waves on her face, messy and everywhere and _utterly Luna_. Her mouth was spread across her face in laughter, her teeth shining so brightly she could have mistaken them for a light of their own. And her eyes, though scrunched up and wrinkled with her broad smile, were filled with warmth.

Hermione finally worked up the motor skills to sit up, at a loss for words. _At least,_ she thought with a small amount with vindictiveness, _Luna was blushing too._ And she looked like she was enjoying herself.

“I wouldn’t mind doing this again,” Luna said suddenly, winding down from her laughter. She had a pensive look on her face.

Hermione started, try to form words in response to that. _What?_

“You don’t snore,” Luna elaborated, as if that explained anything.

Hermione rounded up her thoughts and ordered them very sternly to stop scattering and running off to Merlin knows where. “Ah, yes, Luna, I really don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Luna looked confused. “You don’t want to?”

Hermione wasn’t going to lie to herself. Okay, maybe a little. Okay, she was going to half lie.

Never mind, she was going to throw herself into vehement denial.

“Look, Luna, as friends, I don’t really feel comfortable sharing a bed.” That was a lie, she was in fact _very comfortable._ Cuddling with Luna was _more than comfortable_. It was _everything_ she’d ever imagined a full night’s rest felt like. In the _clouds_. With an _angel_ in her arms.

Okay, she was going to stop thinking now, that obviously wasn’t doing her any good. And she was going to pretend none of those feelings existed and not going to confront any of that yet- oh look, there’s a shelf full of books, how wonderful-

“Oh, well, that’s too bad. Do tell me when you change your mind. I really quite liked it.” Hermione felt another blush overtake her face. Luna never really was one for tip-toeing around situations.

The woman in question started to get out of bed and headed over to her drawer. Hermione jerked so fast that she fell over on her side and hit the ground. She quickly scrambled up and out of the room. 

“I’ll just let you get dressed now!” She shouted, not looking behind her. She power-walked to her room like it was the Crumple-Horned Snorkack itself chasing after her and collapsed against the door once she safely inside. She slowly calmed her breathing.

She had never realized the otherworldly beauty that possessed Luna. The other woman was always decked out in all sorts of strange accessories and clothing that made her out to be quite dorky, and, Hermione had to admit, cute. But when you left behind all the quirky accessories, when you were left with just Luna… she really was enchanting. It was like all her oddities anchored her to the ground, brought her within reach, and without them, she was just so above everyone else that you couldn’t even imagine yourself ever approaching her level. She looked so cold, shades of silver and ebony. And she _knew_ Luna, _knew_ how Luna acted in real life, but when she was asleep, while others looked vulnerable… Luna looked like a celestial body came down to Earth, so cold she could _burn_.

And then she would wake up, and her smile and laughter seemed to melt it all away, turning a cold silver world into shades of warm yellows.

Yes, okay, her friend was pretty. She was _allowed_ to find her friend attractive. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Oh, Merlin, she made a fool of herself in there, but who wouldn’t when they found themselves in what should have been an extremely embarrassing situation with none other than _Luna_? Then again, Hermione didn’t really know. She had never shared a bed with _anyone_ , ever. Maybe normal girls slept in each others’ beds all the time? Well, it didn’t matter, Hermione wasn’t a normal girl. And she didn’t _need_ to be. If she felt that sharing a bed was too intimate for something to be done between friends, well, then it was. She told Luna how she felt, and that was all that mattered. 

Yes, she just found her friend aesthetically attractive. There was nothing else. Luna was a smart, quirky woman who also happened to be pretty and believed in children’s stories.

Hermione gathered up all her thoughts and put away the feelings _that did not exist_ away for later. She quickly went through her morning routine, remembering to turn off the alarm she had set with her wand, and finally left to the main room to have breakfast.

Luna was already seated, buttering toast that was strangely pink. Luna seemed to like the colour a lot, actually. Pink and blue. Like candy floss. Soft and fluffy and weak to water. Oh, and’ll rot your teeth off. That’s for sure.

“Good morning,” Hermione greeted Luna after preparing a strawberry-raspberry smoothie and croissant in the kitchen, remembering that in the mess that was her wake-up she had forgotten to say anything of the sort.

“Good morning,” Luna easily replied. While they quietly ate their breakfast, Hermione took stealthy peaks at Luna. 

It was just as she had thought. In her daily wear and ornaments, she had a completely different atmosphere to her. Hermione couldn’t decide which way she liked Luna more, or less. She was still the same Luna on the inside, right?

They went about their daily routine, getting dressed and heading out to explore the forest and supposedly follow “Nargle trails.” Hermione slowly relaxed as the day went on, more and more settled in the idea that Luna was very much the same person she had been the day before. She still pretended to talk to trees, she still talked about Nargles and the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and she still gave extremely out there answers to pretty benign questions. She still smiled in the same goofy way for absolutely no reason, she still absently hummed tunes that Hermione couldn’t place while walking, and she still made decisions on mere whims.

Luna might have been a special kind of crazy, but at least she would always be _Luna._


	6. Chapter 6 - Luna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha I forgot Crookshanks existed OOPS but it's okay I retconned him into ch 5 with like one sentence :"""D

A couple of days had passed since Hermione had joined Luna in her bed. They had found her another blanket from storage and Hermione hadn’t come back for a repeat. Luna was disappointed, but didn’t push her. Waking up with Hermione had been… wonderful. Hermione had blushed in the most adorable way, and she acted very much like she had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. In the wrong bed entirely, it could be said, but Luna would very passionately disagree. Hermione had looked blissfully human. Her hair regressed back into the frizzy strands they used to be in their early Hogwarts years, before she had apparently mastered some hair care charms to apply in the morning. And though her eyes were lit up with wakefulness, her lids were still weighed down by grogginess, and she looked wonderfully lethargic. Peaceful, even. And even if her pajamas were just a simple pair of a cotton shirt and pants, she was adorable. Her sleeves were just a _bit_ too long, drooping over her hands in the most childish way.

And just as wonderful was actually sleeping in the same bed. She remembered very vividly what had happened when Hermione had walked in at night, even if she had been only half awake. Her memory was very good, after all, and that memory in particular was simply too interesting to let float away in the fog of forgetfulness. Hermione had walked in, unsure. Her posture was tense and her eyes were bloodshot. She was quite certain that Hermione had suffered a horrible nightmare, possibly from the war. Luna knew she had her own array of problems gifted to her from the awful time, but night terrors were thankfully not one of them. She tended to sleep through her nightmares, mild or otherwise.

She hadn’t had any nightmares that night though, for which she was quite glad. Hermione’s embrace was warm and safe, and Luna quite hoped it would happen again. If anything, maybe she could coax her into a hug? Hugs were wonderful.

Luna was brought back to the present by Hermione’s exit from the tent. Luna waved to her when Hermione looked up, and the other crossed her arms and huffed in response. Luna had considered taking her advice about safety charms once, but she really didn’t feel the concern that Hermione seemed to. She was sitting on a tree branch; the tree would never want to hurt her. That would be quite rude and would incite a lot of gossip amongst the other trees.

And none of the native creatures were aggressive, at least not the ones that climbed trees. The worst that could happen would be a diricawl appearing in her lap, but Luna was not easily spooked. Ginny had tried multiple times without success, and it could be said that her time in Malfoy Manor had made it even harder to scare her. 

Luna jumped down to Hermione’s side and they headed out into the forest once more. They had made a lot of progress, scouting at least a third of the area by now. She was proud of their work, even with the niggling reminder that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack could be maneuvering itself out of sight with the help of Nargles.

She really did want to find it, and her desire was always there in the back of her head. She tried to enjoy everything else the expedition had to offer, knowing this _could_ end up another failed attempt, but hoping it wouldn’t. 

“This is the fourth-and-a-half expedition for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” Luna ended upon saying during a lull in the conversation.

Hermione looked confused. “Fourth- _and_ - _a-half_?”

Luna nodded sagely. “I tried to go on my own last year, but it was very lonely and got quite a bit boring. There was also the fact of a very dangerous snowstorm that forced me away, but mostly the loneliness,” she said, with all the nonchalance of talking about the weather.

Hermione looked like she regretted asking, just a bit. “Well, why did you go alone?” she asked, a bit gently, as if she didn’t want to spook her. It was very endearing.

“Daddy got very sick, and we went to St. Mungos. It wasn’t so serious that they kept him there, but we were strongly advised against any putting him under physical strain. I thought it would be a good idea to go alone, since I didn’t want to owl or floo-call anyone on such short notice.”

Hermione grimaced in sympathy. “Well, I’m sure Ginny or Hagrid would have loved to come with you.”

“Ginny really doesn’t like walking. I asked her about it before, and she had told me should would come if it made me happy but she really didn’t like the idea of going on hikes everyday. And she was so appalled at the idea of not playing quidditch for two months, so I decided to leave that alone. I’m sure Hagrid would have loved to, but he’s too dedicated to Hogwarts to take a leave of absence during the school year. I actually did send a letter to Rolf, but he was studying a school of shrakes he had been hired to deal with. He couldn’t leave, but he did end up sending me a copy of his notes afterward.”

“Wait, Rolf? Rolf Scamander, as in Newton Scamander’s grandson?”

Luna nodded in affirmation. “Apparently he inherited his grandfather’s expanding suitcase. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had just stuffed all the shrakes into there while no one was looking.”

Hermione’s eyes furrowed. “I’m guessing he was unavailable for this expedition as well?”

“Well, it would be better to say he was emotionally unavailable. Family matters. I didn’t want to take him away from that.” His mother died while visiting the Department of Mysteries. He was in quite a state, and Luna had stayed with him to provide comfort, but afterwards it didn’t feel appropriate to sweep him off on another adventure. She wanted to give him time to grieve and spend time with his family, and while the expedition would have taken his mind off things, it would have seperated him from his family. Of course, Luna knew that that wasn’t something that Rolf would appreciate her telling Hermione. While she was quite open with her life, she understood that her friends wanted their privacy. It probably helped soothe their worries that very few would believe anything she wrote about them in the Quibbler, nothing she wrote would be accepted at the _Daily Prophet_ , and most people really were just very wary about anything that came out of her mouth. It wasn’t her friends’ fault that people tended not to believe her, so she didn’t dwell on it.

“What made you want to go on the expedition? I heard you were busy with house-elf rights in the ministry,” Luna asked.

“We actually wrapped up the final revisions the day I saw your ad. It was going to take time for it to be taken up and voted on during the next Wizengamot session, so I thought it would be an interesting idea. I work in the DRCMC but more often than not I’m tasked with the paperwork. Going outside seemed to be the most prudent solution.”

“What will you do once the expedition’s over?”

“Well, I’ll go back, of course.”

Luna was confused. Hermione had just admitted to being tired of all the paperwork she got in her position. How would going back fix anything?

Suddenly she understood. “So are you going to go on yearly expeditions as your breaks?”

Hermione tripped, catching herself just in time. “What? Why would I do that?” She sounded honestly perplexed, which made Luna even more confused.

“Well, if you’re tired of doing so much paperwork, and are going back to the department anyway, and you’re taking this expedition as a break, it just obviously seemed to be what you were implying.”

Hermione sighed, obviously not agreeing with Luna’s theory of taking yearly expeditions as ‘the obvious solution’ to her problems. “I can probably ask my head to give me more out-of-office work. Either way, after I accomplish what I plan to do in the department I’ll be applying for a transfer to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Of course, this will probably mean more paperwork, seeing as the Department has more activity… Well, what matters it that I’ll be doing what’s right.”

Luna took a few minutes to mull over Hermione’s response.

“I still think it’s a wonderful idea to go on an expedition with me every year. You don’t seem to not enjoy it.”

“I _am_ getting work done. You are right, to an extent, as the research is very fulfilling, but it cannot be guaranteed that I will be tasked with research every time I want to go off on an adventure. And anyway, I have important work to do, and month-long expeditions take a lot of time away from that work,” Hermione countered.

“Well, I’ll send you an owl anyway. I think your company is quite nice.”

Hermione blushed from beside her, abruptly shutting her mouth. She seemed to be trying to figure out how to respond before finally clearing her throat. “Thank you, Luna. I find our conversations quite… intriguing as well.” Luna noticed that Hermione said it with a lot less mocking of a tone than she would have a week ago, and grinned. She was a lot more sincere, but there was still that note of caution. Luna knew it was because of her frustration with some of the things Luna said, but Luna knew she couldn’t exactly just make Hermione understand her. And maybe she never would, but that was quite sad of a thought so she gently pushed it away.

They continued onto other subjects, walking as they usually did. Luna noticed how much better Hermione got at avoiding twigs and branches. They stopped at a gathering of berries so that Luna could pick some. Hermione didn’t comment except to remind her that they should wash them before eating them. Luna has figured out by now that Hermione wasn’t always nagging to show her superiority. It was still the case sometimes, just not as often. Hermione volunteered to hold the bag for her while she harvested them, so that was nice.

They came across a strange sight; more specifically, Luna felt the urge to look up and her eyes landed upon a single monkey. “‘Mione, there’s a monkey on top of us.”

Hermione’s eyebrows rose a fair couple of centimetres. In fact, they were very cute. Like a pair of very well groomed volcanic caterpillars. She probably shouldn’t say that to Hermione. Most wizards and witches she’s talked to don’t appreciate having their body parts compared to magical creatures. Well, except maybe Hagrid and Rolf. And Ginny just tended to laugh good-naturedly.

“This is the second time we’ve seen a non-native animal in this forest.”

“A lot of magical experiments involve animals,” Luna supplied as an explanation.

Hermione’s eyes drew together, obviously not happy with that idea. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to take them to the Office of Mysterious Appearances. I hope this isn’t a hotspot for animals to just appear.”

Hermione brought down the monkey and Luna sent it into magically-induced sleep. They made their way back to camp, reaching it in about two hours. They weren’t as far from camp as they had been when they found the koalas.

They entered the storage room and went through the motions, they had to find a new crate since they handed in the other two with the koalas. 

With the monkey placed in containment, Luna and Hermione sat at the table and had dinner. 

“Is it normal for animals to pop up in the same area like this? I’m starting to get concerned. If an invasive species appears in this forest, it could cause serious problems for the ecosystem.” 

“I’ll write it down in the form when I hand her over, if you like,” Luna appeased.

“Yes, that sounds right. I think I might still do some research into this topic though. Logically, it stands to reason that this would be an issue with the appearances happening on muggle land.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own while I go to drop her off tomorrow, but if anything pops up you can just send me a patronus.”

Hermione tilts her head to the side. “You want to go on your own?” She sounded confused. Luna didn’t know why she would be.

“Well, I don’t want to force you to go, since we only have one crate to fly and you probably value your time to the point that you don’t want to waste it on a full-day trip away.”

Hermione looked like she was considering her words. They made perfect sense to Luna. After all, taking creatures to the Office of Mysterious Appearances wasn’t even really part of the expedition.

“I’d still like to go with you. I’d think it be rather a bore alone here.” Luna translated that in her head to ‘I would love to go with you and do nothing else but talk and fly together.’ Well, she didn’t really think exactly along those lines, that might have been a bout of wishful thinking, but in light of Hermione’s previous admission, she knew that she wasn't that far off. Hermione wanted to spend the day with _her_.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.” Luna smiled brightly at Hermione, who was faintly blushing. Luna had noticed that she was doing it with a lot less red, but with a larger frequency. She wasn’t complaining. Hermione blushing was simply adorable.

***

The next day went quite similarly to the first trip to the Department. Luna had breakfast, serviced the brooms, and then waited until Hermione woke up and had breakfast. She had considered getting out only one broom, but she really didn’t want Hermione to make a fuss, and she didn’t know if the broom could take that much weight. Then they headed out the clearing and tied the crate to Luna’s broom and flew off.

With the help of a few charms that they had devised during the first trip, it wasn’t too uncomfortable and they were able to easily speak together.

“Who taught you to service broomsticks?” Hermione asked.

“Ginny did. When I visited her during the summer we sometimes played Quidditch, and she ended up showing me how to do it.”

“Really? Right, you lived quite close to each other, didn’t you? Well, I don’t use brooms a lot, so I never learned. The closest I ever came is when I bought a broom servicing kit for Harry and the clerk tried to show me how to use it.”

“If you want, I can show you how when we come back.”

“Well, you already fixed them up this morning, didn’t you? There wouldn’t be much of a point.”

“All right. Then, the next time we find a mysteriously appearing animal in the forest.”

Hermione laughed quietly. “Are you hoping we find another one, then?”

“Well, I don’t think so. I know being in a strange new place without your family is quite scary.”

There was a pause.

“Yeah. Well, let’s just hope they can find where these animals came from.”

They touched down at a bakery for lunch. They bought a couple of cabbage pastries for lunch, and for desert were recommended a danish dish called rababergrød.

After that they flew the rest of the way and dropped off the monkey. They filled out the forms and Luna made sure to note the connection with the koalas. After that they made their way back in the same fashion as the first visit.

When they flooed into the town Luna made a quick stop at one of the grocery stores to pick up some food whose stock was getting low in the tent kitchen. It wasn’t necessary, since there were other options to choose from, but Luna liked to have certain ingredients handy.

“Would you like to help me bake a pie tomorrow?”

***

Hermione had answered by looking very much like she was not expecting that sort of question, but agreed nonetheless.

They met in the kitchen after having breakfast, Luna taking out wares and directing Hermione on the ingredients needed. Luna opened one of the shelves and took out a soft, somewhat worn recipe booklet. It had most of her father’s recipes inside, but since his handwriting could get very messy, her mother’s lettering was what filled the pages. The first half or so of the booklet was filled with all sorts of magical and special recipes that her father had created and collected. The second half was filled with mostly very basic or muggle recipes with tips on what ingredients could be replaced and spells for better cooking. It was quite a clever study of her parent’s personalities; her father loved to create and collect all sorts of strange things, whereas her mother liked to change perfectly regular things into wondrous anomalies. They had been quite the pair.

Luna turned to the page on blueberry pie. She wasn’t planning on changing too much, but she wouldn’t mind taking her mother’s advice. She read over the recipe and directed Hermione in turning on the oven to the right temperature.

Then they went about mixing ingredients, Luna taking care of the pie crust and Hermione mixing the berry filling. Next, they put the filling to the side and shaped the dough before chilling it. Then they rolled it out and pressed it into the glass tray. After that, they scooped the filling into the pie crust and covered it with the top layer of crust. Luna of course, cast a spell on the crust to cut out the silhouette of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. After that they sealed the edges of the crust and put it in the oven to bake. All throughout, Luna couldn’t stop herself from watching Hermione’s tongue peak out as she measured the sugar, or her hands waving here and there, fingers dusted in flour.

Luna cast some spells on the oven to let out the pie to cool after it finished baking, then together they magically cleaned up the kitchen. 

“Who taught you to bake?” Hermione asked, when they were already outside and amidst the trees.

“My father did. The recipe was my mother’s.”

“Oh. Did your mother collect recipes?”

“A bit. My parents both liked to. The recipe book I used has both of their recipes. My mother didn’t like to bake as often though. She wasn’t very patient.”

“Well, my parents didn’t cook very much. They were at work a lot.”

“What did you eat, then?”

“My parents had a friend who did private catering for money. We had him come over every friday to make the food for the next fortnight.”

“So you ate the same food for two whole weeks? That doesn’t sound very fun.”

“Well, not exactly. I got to ask for what food I wanted and so usually there were different things I could eat during the week. If it ran out before he came back, I got to make myself grilled cheese.”

“That sounds lonely.”

Hermione sighed. “Well, they operated a dental office, so they were really busy. They made a lot of money, so they tried to buy me things to make up for it, but they weren’t really around a lot.”

“Being a dentist sounds sad. What does a dentist do?”

“Well, they seem to like it. A dentist helps clean and fix people’s teeth.”

“Oh, well, I guess since we have healers to take care of that we don’t have dentists. Maybe your parents are sad cause they only work with humans? They should try helping vampires. Vampires are very good conversationalists.”

Hermione gave a dry chuckle. “I don’t think my parents are ready for that kind of customer.” Hermione’s face took on a pensive expression. “Luna, are you vegan?”

“What does that mean?” Luna asked airily.

“It means you don’t eat or use animal products, like cheese or beef.”

“I don’t like to eat animal meat. Sometimes I eat milk products, but me and my father”- Hermione’s eye twitched-” buy them from the local farms. I eat eggs sometimes, but I don’t know how to feel about it. Using animal products though, is another story. We had to use animal parts for Potions class, so I stopped taking it after my OWLs. It made me quite sad. For things like books and materials, its quite hard to know whether it’s fake or real, so I tend to just ask and take the seller’s word for it. I try to stay away from buying potions in general, but I do stock all the ones needed for emergencies and to cure sicknesses.”

“By muggle logic that puts you along the lines of… vegetarian.”

“Did you have a reason for asking?”

“No, I was just interested in why none of the food ever has any meat in it…”

“Oh. That makes sense. If you want, we can go to the village nearby and you can buy some?”

“Oh no, it’s fine. I think I’m fine with eggs and dairy. I won’t die without meat for another month or two.”

“Good. You dying would be very bad,” she said, looking very serious.


	7. Chapter 7 - Hermione

_“Flipendo!”_ The blanket flew back into the wall. Hermione jerked forward, breathing hard. She groaned and stumbled over to the opposing wall. The material looked a bit ragged, but it didn’t seem _too_ bad. She cast a quick _reparo_ on the blanket, and it slowly it unstiffened and mended itself back to a not-so-sad looking piece of fabric. 

Hermione leaned down to pick up the blanket, only to blink slowly as it disintegrated in her hand. “Huh.” As the now very sad specks floated down, she noticed a certain object that had escaped her sleep-addled mind, but apparently not her wand. Under what used to be the blanket now lay a broken off piece of the wooden bed frame. She turned around and walked back over to the bed to assess the damage. She couldn’t really see too much, since it was dark and all, but it might have been a _bit_ crooked. Probably wasn’t crafted with being assaulted by a panicked witch every night in mind.

Hermione felt a wave of dread move through her when she realized what the most obvious solution to her predicament was. She still couldn’t open the storage room on her own, no matter how many times Luna showed her how. She really didn’t have any other choice that didn’t happen to be an overly-complicated and unnecessarily dangerous plan.

She was going to have to ask Luna to share her bed again.

Hermione stood with a sigh. She was going to go against what she had told Luna. She had explicitly told the girl she wasn’t comfortable sharing a bed with her friend. She was going back anyway. It wasn’t even that she didn’t enjoy it, but there was the _principle_ of things to consider. Well, Luna didn’t really seem the type to care much about that. Or maybe she was the type to care only about it?

Well, she could always say it was a special occasion and emergency. It was decision based in prudence. That’s what she would say if Luna decided to bring it up.

Hermione made her way out of the room, making sure to keep her breathing steady. She could actually _hear_ her heartbeat getting quicker. _Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump Thump-Thump Thump-Thump._

She slowly pushed open the door to Luna’s room. It was bathed in the same ethereal glow that it had been the last night she had been here. Luna’s hair was splayed out like a messy broken halo about her head.

She walked up right to the edge of the bed. “Hey, Luna?” she said, a bit quietly.

Luna made a soft noise that _could_ have been in response, but Hermione wasn’t sure. “Luna?” she tried again.

“Mmm. Yes, ‘Mione, you really shouldn’t go into that library. You might drown,” Luna mumbled from between her pale, pale lips. Which Hermione was not staring at. No.

She was actually paying very rapt attention to what Luna was saying. Library or something, was it? Didn’t know why she would be drowning in a library…

Hermione yawned, which actually also seemed to coincidentally wake Luna up. A bit.

“‘Mione? You okay?” She said, the words coming out a bit slurred.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Luna. My blanket just… disintegrated.” She paused, not really want to say it, but she knew she had to. She couldn’t exactly stand there awkwardly.

“That sounds terrible,” Luna offered, eyes still half closed. Her skin looked soft.

“Yeah.” She took a breath to prepare herself.

Except, before she could continue, Luna spoke up again. Well, she sat up a bit and then spoke. “Do you want me to go get you another blanket?”

Hermione’s heart stuttered at the words. She couldn’t tell if it was in a good way or in a bad way. On one hand, Luna was respecting her boundaries and offering to get out of the comfort of her bed to help Hermione. On the other hand, Hermione had really warmed up to the idea of sleeping together with Luna again on the walk from her room to the other girl’s.

Luna was already making her way out of bed, so apparently Hermione had to make her decision right then and there.

Hermione grabbed her pajama sleeve.

“No! Uh, Luna, that’s… okay. I think, maybe I can just… sleep here… with you?” The words tumbled out clumsily and with a nervous tremor. Luna’s eyes drew up to hers, and Hermione quickly averted her gaze. The stare seemed to be… appraising. Sometimes Luna seemed to be more awake when she was half-asleep, Hermione noted with irritated mirth.

“Okay.” And Luna gathered herself back onto the bed, snuggling under the covers. Hermione’s shoulders sagged with relief. No questions, no accusations. Just acceptance. Just _Luna._

Hermione walked around to the other side of the bed and crawled in beside the other. It was warm. And comfortable. Hermione shimmied up to her. Her face was all sharp lines and peaks in the moonlight, and yet the planes of skin were still so _inviting_. Hermione had the inexplicable urge to trail her fingers over every centimetre until she could undoubtedly say that she _knew_ it. That she knew _exactly_ what Luna was without the sun to soften her edges.

And yet, again and again, Luna always proved to be more than what she looked like.

Hermione turned off her wand alarm, determined to wake up _long_ after Luna did, not wanting to repeat any of what happened last time. Hopefully she could just take advantage of the situation provided and avoid any early-morning consequences. _At least_ ‘till mid-day.

***

Hermione slowly felt herself get pulled from unconsciousness. She was once again aware of the soft mattress she was laying on, and the fluffy blanket that was weighing her down, and the pillow that was carrying her head.

She was also suddenly aware that they felt very little like the ones in her room.

She jolted up, eyes blinking furiously in an effort to fully wake up. She immediately turned their gaze to the other side of the bed. 

A few seconds passed before she let out a relieved breath and closed her eyes. Empty. Thank goodness. She stretched her arms over her head and let her eyes open again. She reached for her wand under her pillow, preparing to cast a quick _Tempus_. Her head was still facing the other side of the bed, and she realized that, on second thought, it was _not_ empty. Though the previous occupant was absent, she had surely left something there to take up the space.

On the blanket lay two notebooks, which, on a closer look, Hermione realized were in fact _sketch_ books, and a couple of drawing tools. She recognized pencils, what looked like a piece of contorted rubber, and a stick of charcoal. Hermione started to actually _look_ at the scratched out lines sprawled over the pages, and her breath caught. 

Her. She would recognize the person she saw in the mirror anywhere. It was a drawing of her. It was a drawing of her with her eyes closed, her hair splayed out messily around her face and on the pillow, with the fabric of the blanket bunched up over her shoulders. It was… _pretty_. Luna made Hermione being a mess look _pretty_. And she was _really good_ at it. There wasn’t exactly a level of detail, but it was undoubtedly _her_ stretched out on the page. It was in the slope of her brows, the square in her jaw, her frizzy, messy - _but ultimately beautiful in Luna’s sketching-_ hair.

And Luna had done it while Hermione was sleeping.

Hermione felt a full-force blush overcome her. Luna had been _staring_ at her, while she was asleep, for who knew how long! It could have been _hours!_ Though, honestly, Hermione had never tried drawing anyone, so she couldn’t exactly guess. Luna could have been a prodigy that only needed five minutes to do it. 

Hermione turned the sketchbook to face her right-side-up. The page before the one with her sleeping also depicted her, but she was writing in her notebook. The hand and arm were quite messy, most likely because she had been moving her arm to write, but her face held an astonishing level of emotion. She never knew someone could draw eyes and make them do _that_. The table was given very little detail, along with any notion of the background, but the centerpiece was wonderfully illustrated. The notebook was drawn with such care that Hermione was almost surprised she was also in the image.

Also, how did she not notice that! Surely she would have noticed Luna staring at her? Maybe she just hadn’t thought anything of it at the time? Luna _did_ often do strange inexplicable things… 

She flipped to the page before it, and wasn’t sure what emotion fell over her. Relief? Disappointment? Either way, her eyes had fallen upon a depiction of a wild boar. Hermione remembered that. They had stopped to investigate a particularly sickly tree when Luna had pointed out a boar standing next to a log a couple of meters away from them. Hermione had been going through the process of using the tree-care spells Luna had taught her, so she hadn’t paid it more than an appreciative glance, but Luna must have stopped to draw it, from the looks of it. They ended up staying out quite late, so Hermione was surprised Hermione got such a good sketch done in the near-darkness.

She also noticed some jotted notes around the sketch. They were a bit random, but they seemed legitimate. One was, _‘male- solitary’_ and another reading, _‘undeveloped mane- 1-3 years’_. There were some other notes, like the estimated length of the canines and weight of the boar. Hermione was actually a bit confused as to why Luna was taking notes on a non-magical animal. Wasn’t she a _magi_ zoologist? Why did she bother learning about boars’ sexual dimorphism?

She could ask her, but that might lead to questions about her touching her sketchbook while she was away… But she was drawing Hermione, so she didn’t exactly have the higher moral ground!

On the page next to it was drawn a piece of pie on an elegant plate. The texture seemed to be the focus of the image, detailed to an absurd extreme, while the lines were done sketchily and seemingly with little care. The plate was posed humorously against the pie, a simple piece put up against its complex passenger. Or maybe Luna was lazy. That was very possible.

She flipped the page again, finding another drawing of herself. She remembered this one, it was the first time she had tried out casting the tree-care spells. She knew it was that time, because she had been taking great care to get it right, so they had stood there for quite a bit of time. Luna had taken out what had looked like a notebook to Hermione, and she had thought that she was noting something down about the trees or her spellwork. It was apparent now though that she had simply been drawing her. The hand and wand were a bit rough, and there were quite a few eraser marks around that area, but her pose was captured amazingly. It reminded her exactly of how she had felt while casting. Determined, careful, and tense. She was worried that something would go wrong, and she hadn’t wanted to accidentally cause the tree any harm by making a mistake. There was another element though, in the drawing. She looked... regal. Steadfast. Like a wand was meant to be in her hand.

The tree looked a bit pale though. The grass too, she noticed. Luna must have drawn the surroundings much lighter and with less care, perhaps to center the attention on her figure. Or she could have been rushing, after all, Hermione did eventually finish casting the spells.

On the other page lay curled up a smooth snake, which was remarkably lifelike regardless of the sketchy and somewhat messy lines. It looked like the eyes received the most detail work, and Hermione grudgingly admitted to herself that it was worth it. They were beautiful. What made Hermione cluck her tongue was the fact that Luna risked her safety by standing close enough to the snake to study and draw it. Really, would that woman never learn caution?

She did catch a note that made her unsure as to how to feel. ‘Non-venomous.’ Well, at least she considered how dangerous it was. Still, a non-venomous snake could bite! Hermione really was starting to get curious about Luna’s knowledge of muggle animals.

She flipped the page again and felt another blush flood her face. It wasn’t even as intimate as the drawing of her sleeping, but for some reason, it felt a lot more revealing. It made her feel like Luna had plucked out her very identity from out of her hands and spilled her secrets across the rough paper.

It was a scene she remembered with a fond appreciation. She had been trying to feed the wild birds, and Luna had taught her the silly-sounding bird calls. And she had tried them. And Luna had gently helped her, and Hermione had finally gotten the birds close enough to feed. She had been ecstatic and overtaken with almost the same feeling she had felt when she had discovered she was a witch. She had discovered something new, something she wanted to treasure and learn and enjoy. Something she could accomplish as a feat of hard work and effort. It didn’t matter that perhaps there were hundreds of other people that could do it, it only matter that _she_ did it. Something that the old her couldn’t. Something that the younger her would be proud of.

Hermione’s eyes wandered the other book on the bed, supposedly also a sketchbook. Its cover was a blue somewhere between turquoise and teal with Luna’s name in the corner, written in a surprisingly fancy silver foil script. She trailed her finger admiringly over the letters.

Hermione closed the sketchbook in her hands to take a look at its own cover, gently marking where she had been with her finger. The colour was also blue, but a much softer tone, nearing the shade of cornflower. This one also had Luna’s name inscribed in the corner, though it looked decidedly like the handwriting Hermione expected Luna to have. A bit jittery, but very round and soft. The foil on this one, notably, was gold.

She opened the sketchbook back to the page she was on and gently let it down at her side. She leaned forward to pick up the darker one, curious about the distinction between the two. They couldn’t have been for the same thing, or else why would she have both with her on the bed while she was drawing?

She slowly lifted the cover to reveal the first page. Simple lettering took up its space. _“Call and I will answer.”_ That was interesting. Perhaps the book talked back? Or maybe it flipped to the page of what you asked for?

“I would like to see a person,” Hermione tried asking. She leaned in close to the book and spoke quietly, not really wanting to attract Luna’s attention from wherever she was. Whereas she barely felt a smidge of guilt for browsing the other sketchbook, this one had been obviously closed, and she did feel a lot more uneasy about looking. But surely just looking wouldn’t hurt too much?

Sadly, the book didn’t seem to react in any way, so Hermione tried again. “I want to see the latest drawing.” Again, nothing happened. Hermione decided to let it be and flipped the page.

Her eyes widened at the illustration there. At the top of the page was the name of the strange creature, _Plimpy_. It looked like a fairly childish drawing, and was adorably done in crayon. There were little notes around it, such as, _‘hops funny! Hop hop hop!’_ and _‘Tickly nibbles!’_ , and one that made her snort, _‘cannot wok :(‘_. It really was so adorable. How old was Luna when she had done this? Four, five maybe?

The proceeding page was also about the Plimpy, but it seemed to be an improved version done in later years. The drawing here was done in pencil and a bit sketchy. The notes were also more informative, such as _‘grab by face.’_ The next two pages after were also on the Plimpy, and the final illustration and notes were done in ink. It was quite beautiful, and contained a lot more numbers, such as average weight, leg length, and speed.

Hermione flipped past a few pages, realizing what this sketchbook purpose was. It seemed to be where Luna documented her findings on the different magical animals she found or studied, with a lot having multiple versions from her younger years. She noticed that some had less iterations and most likely had been done later on in her life. Hermione took care to stop on all the crayon-drawn ones. She felt a deep fondness for child Luna’s art. It really spoke of her passion for animals.

She flipped through when a specific name caught her eye- _the Crumple-Horned Snorkack._ She felt extreme unease and skepticism wash over her as her fingers flattened out the page. There it was at the top, bold and unapologetic. In the most eye-searing purple she had ever seen. The drawing below was also a mess of purple scribbles, with the occasional yellow squiggles and two black dots that were probably meant to serve as eyes. There was of course the signature babble of child Luna. One that really pulled at her heartstrings was ‘ _the most adoorabelest animal ever,’_ but the one that made her shake her head and think fondly of the journal’s owner was ‘ _must find and bekum frend :D’_ This one also had many versions, possibly even more than the entry on the Plimpy. It seemed that this one was updated almost every year with how constant and subtle the modifications were. She slowly flipped to the latest page, a surprisingly detailed illustration of the supposed Crumple-Horned Snorkack done in ink. There were tens of neatly written notes all around it, ranging from possible measurements and behavioral patterns to recorded witnesses. It really was quite extensive research into an animal that a majority of the wizarding world absolutely did not believe in. It felt like she could really start to understand the passion Luna poured into this strange make-belief animal. There was so much… care put into this.

“You found the page?” Hermione jerked up and away from what she realized moments after was Luna’s dreamy voice. She turned her head so quickly to face the other that she accidentally knocked her face straight into her torso. Which was far too close to her anatomy than Hermione liked so she started back again, hands waving violently in the air, and ended up flopping onto her side. Luna burst out laughing above her, predictably, and Hermione felt her face become far redder than she thought it had ever been the whole expedition. Luna really brought out the _colour_ in her, it seemed. It was not something she thought was very funny, but it wasn’t like she could exactly change her gut reactions.

Hermione counted herself lucky that she didn’t accidentally ruin the books in her floundering, she would have hated to accidentally damage something Luna seemed to treasure so. And, looking at Luna’s crinkled eyes and mirth-filled smile, she was glad to keep the things that made her happy in good condition. Even though they seemed to have a surprising amount of sketches of her inside. 

Thinking of that, she really should ask Luna about them. She picked herself back up into a comfortable position, sufficiently far from Luna, before speaking. “Were you… sketching me? While I was asleep?” She asked tentatively. Her voice was a bit raspy.

Luna’s eyes trailed over to the other open book laying open on the bed, the sketchbook turned to the page with Hermione sitting with the birds. “I was. Does that bother you?” She tilted her head to the side, a bit like the owl that Hermione had seen keep Luna company.

Hermione considered the question. Really, she expected something along the lines of ‘sorry, I won’t do it again,’ or ‘should I stop?’ But then again, this _was_ Luna. She was known for having a skewed view of boundaries and societal norms.

“Well, I would like it if you asked before drawing me,” Hermione stated. “It is rather good though. You’re a great artist,” she amended.

“Thank you. I like drawing you, so I’ll tell you next time.” Really, Hermione should have gotten used to Luna’s blunt compliments by now. She dodged her head out of Luna’s line of sight and started to get off the bed.

“Well, that’s good. I’ll just be off to get dressed now.” Hermione grabbed her wand from under the pillow and walked over to the door before pausing. “I would… really… like to… see your animal journal again… later,” Hermione forced out. She tried to say it nonchalantly, but it came out awkward and fractured. She didn’t want to admit how fascinating the collection of diagrams and notes were, especially because half of them definitely didn’t exist and another half were crayon drawings, but she _really_ wanted to look through it again. Maybe with Luna narrating the notes. And Hermione really wanted to know what the first page was about!


	8. Chapter 8 - Luna

Luna got Hermione another blanket to use, since she still hadn’t decided that she wanted to share Luna’s bed, and the incident didn’t repeat for the next few days. Luna was hoping that by the third time Hermione’s blanket decided to give up Hermione would change her mind, but there was also the chance that there wouldn’t be a third time. Luna wouldn’t go as far as to sabotage Hermione’s blanket, but she did extensively consider the merits and effects of such a choice. In the end, she decided that that was quite a mean thing to speed up the death of an innocent blanket.

They walked back into the tent when Luna recalled Hermione asking her to see her journal again. She was going to do it the evening of, but Hermione was acting a bit skittish and distracted, so Luna decided that it probably wasn’t the best time to show Hermione her treasure. After that it had faded into the background of her thoughts, and Hermione seemed to have forgotten about it too. 

She remembered it in that moment though, so she decided to offer Hermione the opportunity. “Do you want to take another look at my magizoology journal?”

Hermione’s face lights up a bit in remembrance and excitement, but her words come out as if to feign nonchalance. “Sure, that would be interesting.” Hermione smiled at her then though, as if giving up on her mask of indifference.

Luna lead them into her room and up to her bookshelf. Her hand trailed along the spines until she grabbed hold of the blue book, and on a whim decided to pull out her copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. She sat cross-legged on her bed and had a secret little smile when Hermione sat right up against her without any complaint. Her journal had been open when she had left it on her bed with Hermione, but usually she had it locked. 

She made a series of clucks and trills and the cover flew open. Luna didn’t see Hermione giving her a questioning look, but she answered it anyway. “It’s the only recorded call of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.” Hermione made a sound in her throat, a cross between and understanding and disbelieving humm. In the end the it just sounded panicked and confused.

“What does that mean?” Hermione asked, motioning towards the words on the front page. _“Call and I will answer.”_

“I’ll show you. Do you have a specific animal in mind?”

A moment passed before Hermione answered. “A runespoor.”

Luna nodded to herself, shuffling through her memories of the various animals she’d studied. _Runespoor… Runespoor. There!_

Luna felt the other startle when she started to make the sharp and grating hissing sound reminiscent of the Runespoor’s right head. The book pages drifted up to her for a moment, as if breathing in the sound. In the next second there was a sudden and swift flipping of the pages, so fast it actually lifted her and Hermione’s hair. It finally slowed down and landed quite gently on the page of the Runespoor, the first edition. She had done it in first year, when they had started learning the runic alphabet and first heard of the Runespoor. It had been an interesting time, going into the library for information, talking to Hagrid, owling her father about it. Her father _always_ had some useful contacts on hand.

Luna noticed that Hermione was strangely silent. She turned to look at her, immediately noticing her wary and slightly panicked expression. Luna sifted through what just happened. Could this have something to do with…?

“It wasn’t parseltongue, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She paused for a second. “And I’m certainly not a parselmouth.” Hermione warily nodded in reply, but the words didn’t seem to have any effect on her. Perhaps it had something to do with other bad memories? Part of the war Luna didn’t know about?

Luna flipped a couple of pages to the most recent edition. “See, that was the sound of the right head, that I made. We learned a bit about it in Ancient Runes, so you probably know which one I’m talking about.”

Hermione hummed, but it sounded a bit strangled. Luna decided the best choice would be to just continue.

“It’s the one that talks the most, you know? I visited a painting of one, and I could barely hear the other two heads over it. It was probably more talkative than most, seeing as the other two couldn’t really hurt it since they were in a painting.

“There’s a lesson, I think I might remember, about the Runespoor. Three is supposed to be a very powerful number, but not in terms of magical power. Three is the most resilient. Add one, and it gets too arrogant, take away one, and it becomes weaker. The lesson is supposed to be about accepting imperfection. The Runespoor tends to live a short life because it bites off the right head, you know? It gets rid of the part of it that is critical of its weaknesses and strives always to improve. The other two heads don’t like being told they’re not perfect, and so they die because they don’t want to listen. People too, tend to fail when they don’t accept the flaws of their plans.”

Luna took another look at Hermione, who looked a bit more relaxed than before, thankfully.

“You know, you and Harry and Ron are a bit like a Runespoor, except you’re all still alive because they never bit you off.”

At that Hermione spluttered. “Wha-wha-” She sighed. “Of course I’m the critic, great. It’s the most fitting, isn’t it?” She leaned in a bit closer to the book. “Well, I guess Ron would be planner, and Harry would be the dreamer. Who knows, maybe we were meant for Slytherin.” Hermione paused, seeming to mull over the idea. “Okay, maybe not. We were all pretty ambitious, but Slytherin really isn’t only about ambition. After all, you’re pretty ambitious.” Hermione directed at her, flicking her eyes up. “Trying to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and all.”

“I would want to be an Occamy,” Luna replied.

“Hmm.” Hermione stared at Luna, looking as if she was trying to find something. “Well, I guess it fits.”

Hermione seemed to have finally noticed the other book, _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. “Is there a reason you brought that out?”

“A lot of the notes I have down in my journal are based on the entries in the book. And it’s signed by Newton Scamander himself, so I thought I would show you.” Luna flipped open the cover and on the inside was very obviously Newt Scamander’s signature written in bold gold ink, apparently for Hufflepuff pride. On top of his signature was a note, _be the best friend you could ever be_. It was very obviously about animals, but Luna knew it applied to everyone. She had gotten it signed after befriending Rolf, after all, so that probably contributed to the note. Newt loved his family.

“Wow, you know, I didn’t really see you as the type of person to get autographs. Did you really look up to him?” Hermione asked, eyes focused on the writing.

“Yeah, he was my hero for a time. Still is, really. Other than reading his book, I ended up buying books about him and some of the original newspapers covering his adventures. I think Rolf would get a bit weirded out if I told him about the newspapers.”

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t tell his grandfather about that either,” Hermione advised.

After that, Luna showed her the more interesting entries she had made in her journal. She had had the occasion to personally study a lot of the creatures inside, and thought they were quite interesting. She did also have an entry on Bowtruckles and showed Hermione that too, which the other seemed to appreciate. 

***

Hermione was sitting next to two terrariums across the room. In the otherwise quiet room, the soft and steady _scratch-scratch_ of her quill was a bit of soothing background noise. She looked very focused, and every few minutes she would reach up with her hand to tuck a strand of hair that got loose. It was the perfect scene to draw.

Luna had her sketchbook out on her lap and was using her a stick of charcoal to carve out the larger shadows of the drawing. She vaguely remembered Hermione asking her to tell her when she was drawing her, but Luna was quite hesitant to do so. Hermione was just such a _great_ subject to draw when she was focused in her own little world. Luna knew, had experienced multiple times, how people reacted when they were told they were being drawn. Sometimes they would try moving less, so that the artist could get a better picture. Sometimes they changed position so the drawing would show their ‘good side,’ or they would pose to make themselves more flattering. No matter their specific reaction though, the result tended to be the same; the scene ended up looking far from natural. Once they were aware that they were being drawn, even if they tried not to pay attention to it, it was a constant thought it their head. It could result in them being stiff because they find it awkward, or being extremely relaxed because they’re trying _not_ to be tense. The original scene tends to get lost unless you tell the person halfway through the drawing, when you have all the basic shapes and major details done.

So, Luna resolved to just hope Hermione didn’t notice that she was being drawn. After all, she hadn’t noticed all the times she had been the subject of her works _before_ she had found her sketchbook.

Luna knew she shouldn’t have depended on the actions of an ignorant Hermione to predict the actions of a well informed one.

“Hey, Luna, I was wondering-” Hermione started to say, turning towards Luna, but inevitably cut herself off when she noticed the sketchbook in her lap. And Luna’s facing Hermione. And how she was already looking at her.

Hermione’s eyes furrowed dangerously. “Are you drawing me?”

She was caught. “Yes.” Well, there was really only one thing for it. “Can I draw you?”

Hermione adopted a slight frown, but her eyebrows relaxed. “I would appreciate it if you asked me _before_ you started.”

Luna didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to respect Hermione’s wishes, but she also wanted to draw good drawings of Hermione.

Well, in the end, she had to put Hermione’s wishes first, she guessed. How upsetting. Maybe she would give her blanket permission sometime later? There _was_ more than a month left of the expedition.

“I’m sorry. I’ll ask you first next time.” Too bad it wasn’t opposite day. Though, to be fair, if it was, Hermione would surely know, and would probably make sure Luna promised the opposite. She sighed internally. There was nothing else for it.

Hermione nodded decisively and turned back to her glass tanks. Ah, there it was. She had already subconsciously moved her back to Luna, and her shoulders had gone stiff. Luna tapped the stick against the paper. It was sad, really, but she couldn’t exactly tell Hermione, “Just act natural.” That type of thing never worked, especially on the type of people like Hermione. She would overthink it to the point where she would question what _acting natural_ even meant. Luckily for Luna, she had most of the drawing done already, so she just needed to do the rest of the shading and fix up some of her line work.

She continued her drawing in silence for a few more minutes before softly shutting her sketchbook. She could tell that her drawing Hermione wasn’t helping Hermione do her research. Suddenly she recalled the reason Hermione saw her drawing.

She walked over to sit next to Hermione, who sent her a quizzical look. “Were you asking me something earlier?”

Hermione’s face lit up. “Oh, yes!” She pulled her notebook closer to Luna. “See, after what you told me about the amount of water the previous set was drinking, I wondered what would happen if I put native greens in one tank and ones from the kitchen- I hope that’s okay?-” Hermione turns her worried eyes to Luna, who nodded placatingly. “- and so, I ended up writing quite a few notes and such. I found that the one with the non-native greens ended up drinking less of the water, well, you probably would have predicted that. I wondered if you could take a look at my notes and maybe see if there are some other factors I didn’t notice?”

Luna leaned in closer to better see Hermione’s notes. For only studying them for a week or so, it was a lot of information. Luna especially focused on where Hermione wrote down her controls. She listed the weather, temperature, approximate hours of sunlight, amount of food given, and time she was present each day. On a separate page she had the constant controls, like the height and weight of each Bowtruckle, the size of the tank, quality of the water, and some other data. Luna turned her focus back to the subjects of the research.

She looked closely at each of the Bowtruckles and took another look at Hermione’s notebook, turning the page to see Hermione’s written observations of their behavior.

“It looks like you have down mostly everything, but I would add their difference in age. It’s not very large, but still worth noting.” She took a long look at both Bowtruckles. “The one on the left seems to be at least three years old, while the other is closer to two and a half.” “And also…” Luna cast a quick spell with her wand on each of the Bowtruckles. “They’re actually different sexes. The one on the right is female. There is barely any sexual dimorphism in Bowtruckles, but you probably studied that. It’s not mating season, so you shouldn’t have any issues.”

“Mm…” Hermione replies distractedly, her quill quickly moving across the page. “Yes, I thought about writing it down, but as the differences are minute and I had no way to discover it, I thought it best to write in a note to myself on the ignorance on that matter. Say, could you teach me that spell? It’s awfully useful.”

“Of course.” Luna smiled warmly and shows her the spell again. Hermione gets the pronunciation right the first time, just as Luna expected, but she needed a bit of righting for her wand movement.

After being sure that she got it down perfectly, Hermione tested it out on the woodlice, who were all female. After she was absolutely confident, she cast the spell on the Bowtruckles and got the same results as Luna.

“It’s an altered version of the spell healers use for blood tests. Since the original spell finds out a lot of information, the spell is long and takes more magic to cast. There are variations for the most popular uses of blood tests to get only that type of information. It doesn’t work on spirits since they don’t have blood, and it’s not suggested to use for blood-drinkers, like the Flabberghasted leech.”

“Do you know the full version?” Hermione ended up asking.

Luna nodded in affirmation. “It’s very long. I have a healing book that has it taking up almost a whole page.” Luna demonstrated the spell, the words tripping off her tongue through what might as well have been muscle memory. The whole spell took at least twenty seconds to say, and according to Samridhi, the creature healer she had trained with, it was actually three times shorter than what the spell was when it was first created.

“You know, I actually cast the spell on a vampire once. It was my fourth year, I think. Harry took me to Professor Slughorn’s christmas party, which was really quite nice of him, considering he didn’t seem like he wanted to go. I met the third vampire I knew and the first I ever saw in person at the party. His name was Sanguini, which I was sure to tell him was very funny considering his occupation. I had learned one of the offshoots of the spell that determined blood type that year, and asked Sanguini if I could cast it on him. We ended up finding that he very much had a taste for type B.”

“That’s… interesting,” Hermione commented lightly. She didn’t seem all that interested. Maybe because she interacted with vampires so much already, working in the Beings department? Most people either looked disgusted or intrigued by the end of Luna’s recounting.

Luna decided to voice her thoughts. “You must meet a lot of vampires at work. Have you figured out what the most common favourite blood type is?”

Hermione looked like she was about to make a very surprised face before she gave up on it. She let out a sigh, as if to say, ‘what else would I expect?’ “Well, we don’t exactly go around asking them about it. Though I’m sure they would find it terribly rude if we did ask whenever we did business with them.” Hermione made a bit of a face. “One told me I smelled delicious once, though. I immediately asked to be reassigned.”

Luna nods her head sagely. “It’s never a good idea to try to work with someone who likes the way you taste.”

“Ah, well, it’s fine. Most vampires who visit the department are quite pleasant. It’s the ones we have to send out agents to which can be quite… disagreeable.”

“Did you ever have to go out and meet with them?”

“I did consider volunteering, seeing as vampire covens can be so interesting, and the research available is very limited, but I ended up keeping with my in-department assignments. I’m not primarily a field agent, so I wouldn’t be required to go, but since I sometimes also work diplomatic relations and negotiations in person, I have been offered the opportunity.”

“Well, if you ever have the opportunity and the mood strikes you to go, I would be very happy for the chance to go with you.”

Hermione furrows her brows. “Well, I’m not sure what exactly you would want to do there, but I guess if such a thing ever happened, I could ask my head to bring you. You do seem to know your way around vampires.”


	9. Chapter 9 - Hermione

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beep boop this is a warning for a bit of angst in this chapter (discussion of mourning)

They were having another picnic for lunch. Hermione was starting to seriously appreciate these nice outdoor meals. They were so wonderful compared to any meal she could have at the department lounge, much less a quickly forked down lunch in the stuffy office. Perhaps she could make the time to floo to a nice park during lunch when she got back to her office work.

“Do you visit Teddy often?” Luna ended up asking during their conversation.

“I try to. Andromeda’s taking good care of him, as far as I can see. Harry visits him a lot, and all three of us visit him at least once a week. Sometimes I go on my own.” Hermione gave a small smile, and then sighs, a bit forlornly. “Truthfully, I’m worried about how having a werewolf as one of his parents is going to affect him. I’ve already searched through all the archives on werewolves in my department and other wizarding libraries and have come out empty-handed. I’ve done research into other non-wizard Beings capable of having children, and the results have made me even more confused. 

“Veelas obviously pass down their traits to their half-human children, though they are weaker and supposedly cannot transform into the bird-like appearances full blooded veela have. Part-vampires have a subtle vampiric appearance, but don’t drink blood and have a bleeding heart. No one knows if they burn in the sunlight since they can use sun-blocking charms and potions. Half-giants are more resistant to magic than humans, but are shown to have the same level of intelligence and aggression as the average human. Half-goblins are known to be shorter than normal humans, but their appearance is otherwise human and they are not known to have any intrinsic wandless talent.

“I just don’t know what to expect of Teddy or how to help him,” Hermione finished. She was slightly out of breath, and she was feeling a bit melancholic. She _hated_ not knowing how to help her friend’s godson.

“Well, going off the research on lycanthropy and the recent research on the werewolf gene, it is very unlikely that he will be turning into a werewolf during full moons. The magic is very potent in werewolves because of the bite, but seems to dramatically weaken in children. Werewolf children are known to only start transforming in late childhood.

“What is possible though is that he’ll have a taste for rare meat, like Bill, and he might possibly feel under the weather during the full moon, since it’s likely that the lycanthropy virus might attack his system. Perhaps a cold, or just a general tiredness. I really wouldn’t worry too much, if I were you.”

Hermione shows Luna a tired but appreciative smile. “Thanks, Luna. I just get so… wound up sometimes.” Luna flashed her an understanding smile of her own, causing Hermione’s heart to stutter for a second. Really, Luna was too bright for her own good.

“Say, you’re not part Veela, are you?”

The question seemed to throw Luna off guard, but Hermione only noticed the minute reaction because she had been around her for so long now. “Not that I know of. Why, do you find yourself inexplicably attracted to me?” She asked quite curiously.

Hermione’s face flushed so quickly Hermione was surprised that she hadn’t accidentally apparated herself into an oven. Really, the nerve of this woman. Hermione didn’t know how she could say something like that so casually.

Truthfully, Luna looked quite pleased with herself. Hermione felt herself fume with indignation.

“I had a perfectly justified reason for the question! You’re, uh- you’re very blond, and fair, and you know a lot about non-human Beings. And well, I know the community can be very close among non-humans, seeing as they have to face so many hardships.” Damn it. Those didn’t sound like very justified reasons, on second thought. And with the way Luna was looking at her, she didn’t seem like she was going to just accept her explanation and drop it.

And she would have surely noticed Hermione’s avoidance of the question, as Luna tended to do when she found something of great importance and decided to focus on the present. Really, the other was quite good at verbal sparring when she wanted to be.

“Do you find me pretty, ‘Mione?” Luna asked again.

Hermione huffed, but it didn’t seem to have a very large effect seeing as she was still blushing. Curse the bad traffic of her blood in her face. “Goodness, Luna. This isn’t really about that.” Hermione tilted her head away from Luna. Hermione was stalling. She didn’t want to answer the question. Really, why did she even want to know Hermione’s opinion. She flushed even deeper at the thought. “Though if you really must know, you’re certainly very beautiful.” It took a lot of effort to say the words clearly, though Hermione dearly wanted to mumble out the last part very quietly, but alas, her dignity stopped her.

Luna smiled brightly, looking very pleased. And mischievous. Before this point, Hermione didn’t even _know_ Luna could be mischievous. This made her _very_ wary. 

“I thought you thought that I look silly.” Ah, there it was.

Hermione rolled her eyes slightly, but the gesture wasn’t meant to be malicious. In fact, one could say it was even a bit endearing, though Hermione would still half-heartedly deny it. Her eyes flicked to Luna’s ears, where her hair was covering the Dirigible plum earrings she wore. “Well, I certainly think a lot of the accessories you wear look silly.” Hermione grumbles a bit under her breath. “But they don’t look ugly. _You_ don’t look ugly. Wearing them.” She paused, remembering something. “Those weird glasses you wore once were quite gaudy, I’ll admit. I’ve just… never thought anything you wore looked ugly.” Hermione finally relented. Really, she had no idea why Luna was going to _her_ with this. It’s not like she ever showed a hint of fashion sense. She should have gone to Lavender or Parvati or something. Surely even Pansy, who was a right git in school, would have been better to consult?

“Well, that’s okay. They did their job. No Wrackspurt could hide from me.” Well, Hermione could get behind that. Function could always come before fashion, as far as she was concerned.

“You know, no one’s ever asked me if I was a Veela before,” Luna commented.

Hermione didn’t know how to react to that comment. Was it rude to ask people if they were non-humans? It was a normal thing to ask about someone’s status in her department, so maybe she got desensitized to it? Should she apologize?

“It’s nice,” Luna finished. “I’m happy that you think I’m preternaturally gorgeous.” She sends Hermione another one of her blinding smiles that makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. Hermione wondered if Luna ever smiled like that in her sleep. To see that… 

But also, Luna had a bit of bright purple sauce smeared on her cheek, so maybe Hermione really was getting the better deal seeing it while Luna was awake.

***

“You know, whenever I got homesick, my father used to send me letters all about the adventures he and mom went on,” Luna started. They were on another walk, and to Hermione they didn’t seem any closer to finding anything than on the first walk, but she couldn’t get enough of a read on Luna to tell if she thought any different. The only thing she could read off of her was a sort of determined optimism that never wavered. Some would call it stubbornness. Hermione too, would probably call it stubbornness, recognizing it enough from the amount of time it had been worn by her.

“My mother had heard about an animal in Australia that lived off of eating extremely toxic leaves. She wanted to study the relationship to see if she could develop a cure to the poisons a bezoar can’t treat. And she thought bezoars were icky. She thought that wizards and witches limited their study too much to the magical and missed out on non-magical research. My mother ended up creating a rather potent poison based off of her study on eucalyptus leaves, but her progress on an antidote wasn’t very satisfactory. She had come up with a lot of theories but her research got sidetracked with naming koalas and hugging them. Her theories all worked fine, but they apparently caused more damage than not. Mom was really sad that all the koalas did was eat and sleep all day, so she ended up spelling some with extra energy. They still ended up eating and sleeping either way. She did end up pushing forward her research for dealing with dark objects, though.”

“She sounds very… interesting. I wonder if I ever read anything written by her.” And she wondered if her parents had come across a koala yet. No, best not to think on it.

Luna smiled dreamily. “You might have. She did publish one very famous article. My dad managed to talk her out of publishing it in _The Quibbler_. He wanted her to get paid for it, and they both agreed that _The Quibbler_ was a place for passion and not for getting all the boring researchers and companies to pay her money. You might have read it, ‘ _Obliviation and the maladies of the mind.’_ ”

Hermione’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, I read it and all about the scandal it caused in the ministry! It was written about the connections between obliviating muggles and mental illness, and there was so much research on historical cases of wide-range obliviation. I couldn’t believe the correlation it drew to PTSD, but it made so much sense! If part of the memory was erased from the brain, it could contribute a lot to the brain’s inability to move it from short term to long term memory. Of course, I was very surprised that it mentioned so much muggle science, especially since mental illness itself was a bit of a sensitive and dismissed topic in muggle society… Oh, but I’m rambling, and you probably know all this already, since you’re her daughter and all.”

Luna shook her head. “I’m glad you find my mother’s work so fascinating. I really like it too.” She sounded a bit sad saying the last part. Hermione drew her hand into her own and gave it a light squeeze, before loosening her hand. But Luna didn’t let go.

Hermione blushed a bit at the gesture but put it to the back of her mind. Now was not the time to focus on such things. Luna obviously appreciated the comfort. It was what friends did.

“Yeah. I ended up reading more of her work, but you can imagine my reaction when it led me to _The Quibbler_ ,” She smiled abashedly. “Of course, that didn’t stop me from reading it, but I can’t imagine how I didn’t connect it back to you. There were those little bits in there that reminded me of you… I think there was a whole section in the article about Thestrals and the implications of obliviating the death from a person’s mind. I didn’t realize there were so many cases of magical folk going to obliviate memories of people dying from their heads…”

“There was a time when I wished my dad had gotten my mom’s death obliviated,” Luna said suddenly. The atmosphere didn’t feel any heavier, but Hermione felt the weight of those words.

“He was really sad after it happened. He spent the three days after just sitting on his bed. I had to remind him to eat food. He couldn’t even say her name. I would crawl into the bed in their room and he just… laid there.

“And then the next day he jumped out of bed and seemed perfectly fine! I was so happy and relieved, I had thought that the Wrackspurts had finally left him alone! I just wanted to hug him and cry and for him to hold me and tell me it was all going to be okay. I was just so happy that he was finally _there._

“And then I realized he was calling out her name in the kitchen, or outside, or in his inventing room. He was always calling for her to help him with this, or to look at that, and I realized that the Wrackspurts hadn’t gone at all. He was ignoring them without actually trying to make them leave. 

“It was the worst when he called me by her name. It happened once, when was coming downstairs, and he couldn’t see me. He could always tell when it was me or mom walking down the stairs. He just _could._ But that moment, he yelled her name, and I felt something crinkle inside me. As soon as he heard me stop he ran out to me. So I just took him to bed and hugged him and let him hold me _so tightly_ as if he was scared I would leave too. I just didn’t know what to do.” At that point they had stopped walking. Luna was leaning against the trunk of a tree, gazing unwaveringly into Hermione’s eyes. Or maybe her eyes were unfocused. Hermione couldn’t quite tell.

Hermione was silent. She didn’t think Luna wanted Hermione’s comfort or conciliation that she couldn’t have done anything else as a child. She let her speak, listening.

“Mr. Diggory ended up checking up on us after the week had passed. He’s a very kind man, you know. He talked to dad and offered his condolences and help, and that seemed to be when father really seemed to realize that she was dead. He thanked Amos really quietly and then bid the man goodbye. He took me onto the couch and we sat there, and he pet my hair and put his other arm around me and I think that was when he started to cry. Really cry. And then he was saying my name over and over and over again… I think I was crying then too. We ended up falling asleep on the couch, but I think at least he finally sent away some of the Wrackspurts.

“It was… hard, after that. For the next month I think, we just went through all of mom’s recipes and ate and smiled and cried. And we went into her lab and just spoke about whatever came to mind about each project she had on the shelf. Dad ended up pulling out all the rough drafts with all the silly mistakes mom made all the time, and we just read through them and laughed and cried.

“We tried to continue living our lives. It was hard, and we never really forget about mom. I miss her a lot, you know? And sometimes I cry because I realize I don’t remember the sound of her voice or the length of her hair…” Luna took a stuttering breath.

“If you like, you can come over and see the drafts some time,” She offered, her smile watery. 

Hermione stood there for a second, not exactly sure what to do. “Yeah… yeah, I would really like that.” And then she made up her mind and took Luna into her arms, she clasped her hands around Luna’s back and pushed her head into the crook of Luna’s neck. Luna… Luna just didn’t deserve to have gone through something like that. So sweet and empathetic and bright... 

***

Hermione sat at the table, quill poised above the paper. She didn’t exactly know how to start her letter to Harry and Ron. A lot and very little had happened in the last month. She had torn apart three of Luna’s blankets, they had come across a lot of strange animals, and apparently she hadn’t even noticed Luna drawing her almost every day from what it seemed like.

She decided that it would be easiest to start with the simplest part. _Dear Harry and Ron, for the first time in my life I baked a pie from scratch._ Not the most interesting thing, but she knew they would appreciate it. She barely touched desserts when it came to her diet, but making it was nigh unheard of for her. She went on to describe the strange occurrences with the koalas and the monkey. It had been a surprise to her that the Department of Mysteries had an office for something so menial, and was sure to tell Ron that he should make use of it instead of pointing and prodding at the peculiarities he found around him. To Harry she joked that he should send all the unsolicited love letters offering to bear his children there. And then she put in brackets that he probably shouldn’t since the Department was already likely overworked as is, but that he really should get a system in place for that. It wasn’t good for his health. She also asked them if they had ever heard of the broom model Luna and her father owned since she was a bit worried about the possible lack of modern broom charms.

Hermione briefly inquired if Luna could join them on the next visit they made to Teddy, and very sternly wrote that she did _not_ ask for Luna on the topic of half-werewolves. Harry had picked up on her anxiety about any problems Teddy might get later on and was very adamant at facing those problems when they popped up.

She wrote about her progress on her project about Bowtruckles, not going into too much detail since her friends would probably skim over it anyway. She mentioned some troubles with her nightmares in passing, wanting to confide in her friends, but very fervently did not mention going to Luna and sharing her bed. Twice now. Very much not any of that. No. That was staying between her and Luna. Okay, maybe her and Luna and whoever else Luna possibly told. Not that Hermione would tell Luna not to tell anyone, it wasn’t really her right to, it was _Luna’s_ bed after all. Well, it was most likely that she didn’t even think enough of the matter to write to anyone about it. After all, Luna was strange like that.

She signed off with well wishes and plans to get together when she got back from the expedition. By the end of the letter she had a fond smile on her face. Writing to her friends made her nostalgic of the Hogwarts summers when they could only contact each other by owl.

After that she penned a few short owls to the other friends she had been writing to. She wrote to her team working on the house-elf rights bill, she wrote to Ginny, she wrote to Neville, and some other wizards and witches she had gotten to know in the past few years.

Hermione packed up her writing set and slipped the letter into an envelope.

“Luna, I was wondering if you could send off your owl to deliver some of my letters?” Hermione turned to Luna, who was sitting across from her with a sketchbook, sealed envelopes in hand. She had asked to draw Hermione earlier and Hermione got really embarrassed but allowed it. She had actually forgotten about her while she was writing her letters and blushed quite brightly as Luna’s stare met her head-on.

“If you like,” Luna responded amicably, setting her sketchbook down on the table and heading to her room. Hermione surreptitiously creeped closer once Luna was out of her line of sight. Hermione ghosted her fingers against the paper. Luna was _really_ good at drawing. She had never had anyone pay so much attention and care for her hair. It had always been something _in the way_ , whether because it got caught on her shoulder bag strap or because it got in her face while she was trying to study. In school she had always gotten unsolicited advice on how to ‘tame’ her hair and hair products to use. Everyone always acted like her hair was something to be fixed.

“Yeah, it’s my favourite part.”

“Eep!” Hermione scrambled away from what was apparently Luna leaning in behind her who was absolutely _certainly_ not there moments before.

Luna didn’t react to Hermione’s clumsy retreat, instead staring thoughtfully at her drawing with her screech owl looking equally thoughtfully at Hermione. Lorcan was the most unnerving owl she had ever met, possibly just as quirky as his owner, but he certainly was adorable. She couldn’t help but scratch at his ear as she handed over her missives.

Turning her eyes back to the drawing, it finally dawned on her what Luna was talking about; she apparently really liked drawing Hermione’s hair. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine _why._ She hadn’t dyed it or permed it or done it up in any interesting way; she just used a spelled brush in the morning to detangle it and she pushed it absentmindedly away from her face every so often. Now _Luna’s_ hair, she could see the merit in drawing that. It was lush and thick and shiny and fell in waves around her face. She could just imagine how nice it would feel to brush her fingers through it, lying next to her in-

Hermione clenched her teeth and immediately stopped that train of thought. Where had that even come from?!? She turned away from Luna and busied herself with picking up her writing set. She would just not look at Luna anymore, if these thoughts started springing to mind. Really, who was she to be so focused on other girls’ looks when she was such an advocate for brains and personality? Though really, it wasn’t like Luna lacked in those either…


	10. Chapter 10 - Luna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another itty bit of angst (serious injury)

“Did you know that most witches and wizards don’t use over half the spells they learned at school?” Luna said, skipping slightly beside Hermione.

“Really? Well, I’m not exactly surprised, there’s not a lot of cases where you’d need to make bluebell flames in your daily life,” she replied.

“Mhmm. Can you imagine all the free time I could have spent doing research and going to the forest? I could have found the Blibbering Humdingers years ago…”

Hermione didn’t respond to that, but Luna didn’t know if that was because she was at a loss for words or trying to stop herself from saying something mean. Probably just not bothering with an answer, really.

“But, if we hadn’t learned all those other spells, I would have never found out how to change the shape of a snowflake…”

Hermione made a surprised noise. “Why would you want to change the shape of a snowflake?” It sounded like an honest question, which Luna noted curiously. Hermione had devolved into nonplussed facial expressions through their time together. Sometimes there were fond eye rolls. Luna was not expecting a genuine reply.

“Well, I actually tried making art out of snow by letting them fall onto a black canvas and changing the thickness of each snowflake to make to make parts darker and lighter. I had a lot of fun, but the Wrackspurts ended up distracting me so I accidentally melted the snowflakes by leaning in too close. I also made tiny art by drawing designs inside the snowflakes. I actually have a jar of them in my room if you’d like to see. I’ve made sure the Nargles couldn’t steal them.”

Hermione didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

Luna smiled in response. “That’s great. Did you know Nargles hate attention? It’s hard to cause mischief when you’re being watched.”

Hermione hummed. They continued walking and winding their way through the trees. It was sunny out and birds’ chirping travelled through the quiet atmosphere. Luna was looking out for the Nargle trail, which was really quite sparse in this part of the forest.

Hermione turned her head to Luna. “Have you ever tried-”

Hermione was suddenly on the ground. Luna hastened to stop and crouch down to her level when she heard the dull sound of impact that didn’t exactly seem like it came from dirt.

“Hermione? Are you okay?” She asked, concerned.

When all she got was a groan in reply Luna got really worried. Hermione’s hand went up as if by instinct to grab her head, and Luna’s eyes went wide when it came away with blood. She lowered herself and maneuvered Hermione to lean against her. She brushed away Hermione’s hair to see what looked like it might be a gash on her head. Luna’s breath hitched. That was not a good sign.

She quickly cast a spell to clean the wound and stem the bleeding, trying to steady her breathing. She couldn’t panic. “ _Episkey.”_ She intoned slowly, waving her wand in tandem. It didn’t look like the bone had broken into pieces, but there was very much a break. Once she was sure the skull fracture was healed she cast another spell to mend the flesh.

“Hermione, don’t go to sleep, alright?” Hermione nodded and seemed to mumble something. Luna took out her bag and got out her emergency supply of dittany from the middle pocket. She poured out a bit into her palm and carefully applied it around the mended skin. She leaned back to put the dittany aside and looked over Hermione again. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere else as far as she could see, so there wasn’t any other sign of a fracture, but the area on her head where it happened was still warm and a bit red. It didn’t look life-threatening, but it could still be very dangerous.

Luna did the next thing she could think of, which was casting a spell for general diagnosis. After completing the chant, Luna read through the results. Dizziness, scraped hands, some minor effects. She wasn’t too confident about it though, seeing as she had just expended a lot of magic and the spell might not have found everything. She would have to do her best to treat the scrapes to her hands though, before they got infected.

She got out her water bottle and gently took Hermione’s hands in hers. She poured out the contents onto the scrapes and gently cleaned them. It was a shallow wound and Luna quickly cast a light charm to knit the skin back together. Luna decided not to try to fix Hermione’s headache in case treating the symptoms would hide the actual cause. She let out a breath and tilted her head back.

Luna was feeling very panicked now that the adrenaline rush had subsided. They were stranded in the forest, at least a two hours walk from the tent. Apparation was a bad idea in case Luna didn’t heal all the damage. The physical symptoms of apparation could severely worsen head injuries. Should she try to walk Hermione back to the tent? Too slow, especially with Hermione’s loss of her sense of balance and from what seemed like could be a migraine. Should she levitate Hermione back? It was probably the safest option, but Luna didn’t have enough magical energy to make the whole journey, much less after all the healing magic she’d just preformed. Oh, all these Wrackspurts were getting to her. She had to clear her head.

Luna took a slow breath. Right. She would levitate Hermione as far as she could, and then she would walk with her until she had enough magic to levitate her again. Hopefully, Hermione recovered herself earlier instead of later. 

“Alright, Hermione, I hope you don’t kill me when you wake up. Or nag me,” Luna added wistfully. Luna posed her wand at the ready. “ _Mobilicorpus.”_ Hermione’s body floated off the ground and off of Luna’s body. She missed her warmth immediately and sighed internally. Well, now was not the time for that. Maybe Hermione would let her hug her once they got back to the tent and after she went through all her nagging about how irresponsible Luna was and how she did everything all wrong.

She levitated the still out of it and groaning Hermione in front of her and started a brisk pace back towards the tent. It felt like she was spending more energy maneuvering Hermione than even just keeping up the spell.

It wasn’t even twenty minutes later that Luna felt too magically exhausted to continue feeding the charm. She set herself and Hermione to lean against the tree before dropping the spell so Hermione wouldn’t get hurt. She pulled Hermione’s hand over her shoulder and let her head fall gently against hers. She had stopped moaning by now, though she seemed to still be mumbling. Luna hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was saying, too busy trying not to let branches wack Hermione in the head.

Now that she was right up next to Hermione though, she heard her clearly, if not loudly. “Thanks,” Hermione mumbled.

Luna smiled in response but it was tinged with her worry. For Hermione’s migraine to be lasting this long could be a bad sign. She would have to find one of those really extensive head-related diagnostic spells when they got back to the campsite.

She walked slowly with Hermione at her side for what felt like the better part of an hour. She finally felt like her magic reserves were back to a comfortable level, and Hermione seemed a lot better, though she still wasn’t talking, tripping up and stumbling every so often. This was seriously worrying because Hermione would surely have started asking Luna a ton of questions about the spellwork she did on her if she was able to, and, contrary to popular belief, having absolutely zero Wrackspurts around your head with no magical deterrent in use was not a good sign. Luna was still helping Hermione walk beside her, so she didn’t think Hermione was back to her usual self quite yet.

“Alright, I’m gonna cast _mobilicorpus_ on you, so it would be very nice if you didn’t suddenly fall,” she explained to Hermione. Luna couldn’t tell if Hermione heard her, because while she nodded in response, Luna had noticed that Hermione had been nodding and shaking her head at random intervals during their walk. Luna would just have to take it at face value.

She waved the wand and quickly cast the charm. She floated Hermione in front of her and continued to do so until Hermione twitched. Luna couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but half an hour at least had to have. She stopped at the sign and stepped up beside Hermione. Hermione was rapidly blinking, as if trying to wake herself up.

“‘Mione?” Luna ventured.

Hermione turned her head towards Luna and lifted a hand to massage her temple. She winced and then stopped, as she had tilted her head down and must have noticed her floating. “Hi, Luna… Hey, have you been levitating me for the past… how much time has passed?”

Luna didn’t know exactly what to think. Hermione was strangely calm, like she hadn’t yet processed the situation. It was as if she was talking about someone else entirely in fact. And there were still no Wrackspurts around her.

Luna looked up at the sun from between the crisscrossing branches of the forest. From where the sun was now it looked like… “Somewhere around two hours, I would think.”

Hermione blinked emotionlessly. “Two… hours?” She reached up towards her head again as if by instinct, her palm resting on where the injury had been. Suddenly Luna could see all the Wrackspurts rushing towards Hermione.

“I… I fell… and… I hit my head?” Hermione asked, though her pitch had gotten ever so noticeably higher as she went on. She was now aggressively patting her head and face with both hands. Her face was a bit scratched up, but there was no bleeding so Luna hadn’t cast any healing spells on it.

“That’s how it went,” Luna supplied.

“Ohhhhh...” Hermione groaned. “Everything is so fuzzy, I can’t remember exactly what happened after.” She paused, stilling her hands. “Luna, what happened after that?” she asked, her voice strangely stilted. She suddenly seemed very worried. “I think… was I bleeding?" 

Luna felt a bit apprehensive. She knew that she could have done a lot of things wrong when she was treating Hermione and moving her around. She didn’t have much experience with helping other people. She usually only worked with creatures and she helped her dad and friends sometimes. And she _knew_ that the head was one of the most fickle and fragile parts of the human body when it came to magic, her mother had written and told her all about it. It was… it was the reason that… 

“Yeah, you were bleeding quite badly,” Luna replied. 

When she didn’t contribute anymore, Hermione motioned for her to continue. “What did you do?” And she managed to sound almost ambivalent about it, but there was that worry in the furrow of her brow that Luna would recognize anywhere.

Luna took a quiet breath, trying to sound cheery. “I cast a couple of spells on the wound, one to clean it, one to stem the bleeding, and then a healing charm. Your skull had a break, so I healed that first and then the skin.” She took another breath. “After that I rubbed some dittany onto the scar and cast a diagnostic spell. It didn’t show anything too bad. I washed out the scrapes on your hands and healed them.” Luna paused her explanation when it seemed like Hermione was running out of patience and looked like she was about to interrupt anyway.

“Wait, so everything in that exact order?” Luna nodded in response. “Okay. What did the diagnostic spell show?” she asked.

Luna took a few minutes to remember. “Dizziness, scrapes on your palms, scratches on face, possible bruising on your knees, slight migraine.” Luna paused, not sure whether or not to add her worries. “I had used up a lot of energy by then and I don’t know if I missed anything. Since you had a break in your skull, some blood might have leaked through.”

Hermione grimaced at Luna’s confession. “Guess we can figure that out in camp, I guess. You said you have a healing book in your room?”

Luna nodded her affirmation. It felt nice that Hermione remembered, but it was to be expected. Hermione _loved_ books.

“Right,” she continued briskly. “Did you use rubbing alcohol to disinfect the wounds on my hands?”

Luna stared at Hermione, confused. “Why would I use alcohol to clean your hands?”

Hermione pressed her lips together in consideration. “Must be a muggle thing, then. So you used water?”

“From my water bottle,” Luna confirmed.

“Bruises on my knees, huh?” she muttered. She gently pressed her fingers to each knee and winced. “Yep, I’ll deal with that at camp.” She lifted her hands. “So, what happened after that. Did you just… levitate me up to this point? But no, you said you had used up a lot of your magic reserves…”

“Yeah. I ended up switching between levitating you and walking with you. It was very quiet. You would have appreciated it,” Luna added. 

Hermione lifted an eyebrow at her as if in question. The expression quickly changed to one of contemplation. “That sounds… wow.” She stopped, as if slowly considering what to say next. “What I don’t understand though, is why you didn’t just apparate us. I expect you didn’t lack the power for it, since you were levitating me. You shouldn’t have had any problems with visualizing it and wanting to get there, especially since we’ve apparated there so many times.”

“I was afraid of doing more damage to your head. Apparation can be really bad for head injuries, especially skull fractures. I might have not healed it properly, or missed something, and it could have gotten worse…” Luna trailed off. A memory floated at the edge of her mind, but she waved it away. She didn’t need to think of that right now.

Hermione sighed, but her eyes held understanding. “That makes sense. It was the right decision if that’s true. I don’t think I’ve exactly heard of that, but it _is_ better to be too cautious than not cautious enough.”

“So, how far are we from the campsite?” she asked.

Luna mulled over the question. “Another half hour walking, I think. Might take longer if we go slower. Are you still dizzy?”

Hermione brought her fingers up to either side of her temple. “Not so much. I think I can walk normally.” She pushed her hair out of her face and breathed out. “Do you think I can apparate now? My head feels fine and a couple of hours had passed.” 

Luna put on the most serious face she had worn in all of the trip. “I really don’t suggest it.” While the words were quite passive, the tone was not. Luna was making it clear that it was a very bad idea.

Hermione sighed but nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Let’s get going then, I guess.” 

She started walking and Luna stood up closer to her. “You can put your arm around me if you like,” she offered. Hermione was probably still feeling a little off balance, so that would help her. Hermione immediately blushed. Was she embarrassed to ask for help?

She swallowed before replying. “Well, I guess that would be good. We could go faster if I wasn’t tripping every other second.” She put her arm around Luna’s neck a bit jerkily, as if wary of accidentally brushing against Luna’s skin. Which didn’t happen since Luna was cloaked in a warm jacket.

“All right, I think I’m good,” Hermione said. They started walking, a bit slowly at first as Hermione adjusted, but eventually their pace sped up and they were making good time.

Almost twenty minutes had passed when Luna felt Hermione’s face warm up beside hers. Was she okay?

Hermione cleared her throat. “I… I just realized I hadn’t thanked you for helping me. You did your best under the pressure of the situation, and I’m alive, and I’m feeling okay, and I’m not in a hospital. And you’ve brought me all this way on your own, and it might have been really scary, I know I would have been scared if you were the one who hit your head,” she laughed a bit shakily. “And the only healing I know is _Episkey_ and using dittany, and maybe all the muggle stuff I know. And I can tell you were really careful…

“I just, I really appreciate what you did.” Hermione finished off.

Luna smiled right back at her. “I’m very glad you’re alive too.”

Hermione laughed.

***

They made it back to the campsite and Luna brought Hermione into her room. Luna went to her desk and took out a piece of parchment, an ink bottle, and a quill so that the diagnostic spell could write itself out. She pulled _The Healer’s Guide to Head Trauma_ and sat down next to Hermione. Luna flipped through the first chapter of the book until she got to the diagnostic spell, which she showed to Hermione before casting on her. The results slowly listed themselves off through the quill. The results were blood in the skull, light scratches on the face, and minor damage to blood vessels in the frontal lobe.

She flipped to the page on mending blood vessels in the brain and followed their instructions as needed. The scratches would be fine; she was sure Hermione could take care of them later if she really wanted to.

She flicked her eyes back to the woman in question to see a strange expression on her face. Luna was considering different reasons for this when Hermione interrupted her thoughts.

“Why didn’t you cast this spell on me back in the woods?” Luna was confused by how curious Hermione sounded. That type of question seemed like it should have been angry. Then again, Luna didn’t understand why Hermione was asking it in the first place.

“Well, the spell is quite long and I don’t know it that well,” and she wasn’t lying. She knew diagnostic spells for animals much better.

Hermione’s eyebrows drew inward. “Luna, you barely skimmed over the spell before you began casting. It seems like you know it quite well. I would understand if you said you were trying to conserve magical energy, but it takes almost as much as a general diagnostic spell.”

“Well…” Luna paused thoughtfully. “I guess I was afraid I would mess it up without the book there. And if I did? And you got really mad at me for trying a complicated spell on you? And you called me reckless? And you told me that it had nothing to do with Wrackspurts and I was just a clueless little girl?” Her tone was steady but her breathing had sped up and so had her talking. She cared. She wanted Hermione to think she was competent, that the other could _trust_ her, to respect her boundaries and also to save her life. She _cared_ what this no-nonsense stick-to-the-facts beautiful woman thought.

Hermione’s face softened drastically. “Luna… I…” she trailed off. “I… appreciate that. I know I might seem really… patronizing sometimes, or like I don’t see you as a qualified magizoologist. And I want to be honest and say I really didn’t at first. I thought that all you cared about were Wrackspurts and Blibbering Humdingers and the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. And suffice to say, you do care about them quite a lot, and I honestly don’t, but that’s not all there is to you. You _are_ qualified, and knowledgeable, and maybe you didn’t learn everything you know from textbooks, but I’ve realized that I didn’t _come_ on this expedition to learn from textbooks. And you do have all these textbooks, that you don’t even seem like you _need._ I feel like you just have them as a benefit for the rest of us?” Hermione laughed.

“Luna… I trust you. If anything like that ever happens again, I trust you to do whatever you can to help me. I still think you can be reckless, but you’ve made it obvious that you’re really careful with the people and creature you care about.”

Hermione smiled warmly at her. “Just, ahh… if you ever develop some cure to Wrackspurts? Please don’t give it to me? I think I am perfectly fine with whatever Wrackspurts decide to fly around my head.”


	11. Chapter 11 - Hermione

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot chocolate and stargazing !!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this is one of the heaviest chapter in terms of angst. (Discussions of estrangement, mourning, guilt)

Hermione was sitting at the table pouring over her notes on the two new Bowtruckles she had picked up the day before. These were decidedly older than the four she had studied before. Luna had told her at a glance that they were at least five years old.

She was planning on studying another two pairs at the least before she started writing up her report. Before she even started doing that though, she had to organize her notes into quantitative and qualitative data.

She continued her work for a couple more minutes before gently closing her book with a frustrated sigh. Her eyes trailed to the fabric of the tent. It showed the weather outside, right? Well, it looked pretty nice, to be honest.

Hermione obviously needed a break. She knew that tiring herself out by doing sub-par work would not be a productive use of her time. She turned her attention to Luna, who was having a late evening snack of hot chocolate and an almost finished scone. She was reading over a letter she had received yesterday. She looked to be almost finished, at a closer glance.

“Luna,” Hermione said to catch the other’s attention.

“Hmm?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to come sit with me outside the tent when you’ve finished reading your letters. It seems to be a very pleasant evening,” Hermione added.

Luna smiled in response. “I would love to.” She looked down at her food. “I’ll have to finish my scone too first,” she remarked quietly. “Do you want a cup of hot chocolate to take out with you? I was planning on making some more for myself anyway.”

“That would be wonderful,” Hermione responded with a grin of her own. She packed her papers and took them to her room to put away.

When she got back, Luna was finishing off her scone. Hermione decided that now was a good time as any to check on the Bowtruckles. She walked over to the terrariums and took note of how much water and food was inside, as well as the temperature and environment she built. After everything was given the okay, Hermione practiced the blood testing spell Luna taught her, and then the general diagnostic spell she was still working at.

She was getting a bit frustrated at the latter, as she knew that the spell was supposed to be faster than the results she was getting.

“Try angling your wand inward,” Luna suggested from behind her, her hand hovering over Hermione’s. 

Hermione jumped. She didn’t scream this time though, thank goodness. Not that she would admit to having done it before. “Really Luna, I don’t understand your aversion to stating your presence to people,” she stuttered. She was used to it by now as a quirk of Luna’s, but that didn’t mean it didn’t get to her.

Hermione tried slanting her wand more and repeated the spell. She got results a lot faster this time. She hummed appreciatively. “Thanks.” 

“Well, people are a lot prettier when they think they’re alone,” Luna breathed past the shell of her ear, seemingly answering Hermione’s question, which hadn’t been a question, really.

It still made Hermione blush.

Hermione distracted herself by angling her eyes firmly away from Luna. She coincidentally caught sight of Luna’s empty plate and cup.

“Let me help you with those.” She started briskly off to the table and picked up the dishware and set a slightly slower pace into the kitchen. Once there, she set a cleaning spell on the plate and sent it back to the cupboard. Luna made her way into the kitchen at a much calmer pace. 

The ingredients she was using were already on the counter from her previous hot chocolate. Hermione watched and helped Luna with preparing the drinks. She had made hot chocolate at home when she was younger, but Luna had at least twice as many ingredients on the counter than she had used. Hermione had used cocoa powder, milk, and whipped cream if her parents had any. Usually they didn’t, which was when she just had milk and cocoa powder. It was fine, she wasn’t so much of a fan of sweets as a kid. Surprisingly, the complete opposite was true as an adult, but she still didn’t indulge too often.

Luna had just put a spoonful of cocoa powder in each cup and was now putting a quarter-spoonful of something she didn’t recognize. She took another breath in through her nose and was confused by the strong smell.

“Is that cinnamon?” she asked Luna. 

“Yeah. Do you not like it?” 

“I… don’t know. I’ve never put cinnamon in with my hot chocolate,” she admitted.

“I think it tastes good,” Luna commented. 

“Well, all right, why not,” Hermione conceded. If Luna liked it, it couldn’t be too bad. And at least she knew the spice. Luna could have put some strange spice she never even knew existed in there. Hermione glanced at the ingredients still on the counter. On second thought, it was quite probable that there was one of those in the selection.

Luna grabbed a bottle of what Hermione guessed was probably vanilla extract from the label. She put two drops in each cup.

Then she reached for another bottle, this one looking like it was filled with a strange silvery-translucent syrup. Hermione rummaged through her brain for what it could be but came up with nothing.

She decided she would bite the bullet. “What’s that?”

Luna smiled enthusiastically. “This is the specialty Lovegood Flutterby Syrup.”

Hermione’s eyes went wide in surprise. “Flutterby syrup? So it’s made from the nectar of the Flutterby bush? But I read that it only flowers once a century.”

Luna nodded in confirmation. “It’s not made from the Flutterby bush,” she took the bottle and twisted off the cap. “See, you can smell it. It just has a slightly sweet scent.”

Hermione leaned forward and breathed in. “Huh,” she remarked. It in fact did not smell anything like books or libraries or a certain blond woman’s ha- Nope, nope, Hermione was not thinking of that. The point was that the syrup didn’t smell like anything special.

“The recipe has been passed on and experimented with through generations of Lovegoods. We have a big recipe book with all the variations at home. Or in the family vault. I don’t exactly remember. I’ll have to ask for an audit when I get back,” she commented thoughtfully.

“So, what _is_ it made of?” Hermione dared to ask. Well, she _had_ to if it was going to be poured into her drink. Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don’t and all that. 

Not that anything Luna ever made would be her enemy.

“Hmm, some shiverthorn sap, meadow fairy dew, tears of a Weeping Willow, meows of a kitten, golden apple skins, moon whiskers, and a child’s laughter. There might have been some other ingredients from the most recent variation that I can’t remember.”

Hermione glared at the bottle warily. ‘Some other ingredients’ didn’t sound very trustworthy. Actually, even the ingredients mentioned didn’t sound very trustworthy. Meows of a kitten? How would someone even collect those?

Hermione sighed. Well, it would make for a good academic experiment. Luna could use some of her surprisingly substantial healing knowledge if she got food poisoning.

And anyways, if she couldn’t trust Luna with her weird family concoctions by now, she might as well leave.

“All right. You know best how much to pour in, just don’t overdo it. I don’t like my drinks to rot my teeth off.”

Luna giggled. “It should be fine, I haven’t added any gum worms to the mix, but you should probably be on guard when you go back to the ministry. The Rotfang conspiracy is a very serious threat to your teeth.”

Hermione’s face drew inward, trying to unravel the sense in Luna’s words. “You mean gummy worms?” she asked.

Now it was Luna’s turn to be confused, though her eyebrows only pinched a bit. “Why would I mean gummy worms?”

Hermione sighed. She didn’t know what gum worms supposedly were, in the wizarding world _or_ in Luna’s head. “You know, Luna, you could end up passing some wonderful opportunities for work with the ministry if you keep yourself convinced of this Rotfang Conspiracy.”

Luna nods, apparently not disagreeing. “Sometimes you have to put your beliefs before your work.”

Hermione blinked. “I… guess that’s true, but… Oh alright. Just don’t go into the ministry protesting about it and you should be fine.”

Luna shrugged and gave her a dazzling smile, taking the kettle of milk and pouring a generous amount in each cup. Hermione’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Please let that not have given Luna any ideas. After putting down the milk Luna lathered on some whipped cream and sprinkled some… very special sprinkles. Hopefully. They were shaped like tiny gingerbread men and were making snow angels in the whipped cream. Hermione hoped they wouldn’t do that inside her mouth. She never _really_ got over the wizarding world’s obsession with making random food and objects sentient.

They put away all the ingredients before grabbing their mugs and heading outside. The night sky was clear and sparkled with all the stars in the universe, set as a blazing backdrop against the dark trees reaching up and up and up. Hermione loved stargazing, loved that all the stars got their own very special name. 

Hermione and Luna sat down against a boulder conveniently lying a metre or so from the tent. Hermione blew lightly at the hot chocolate fitted between her hands, sighing at the vapour that floated upwards and warmed her face.

“You know, when I first started going to Hogwarts, I wasn’t sure if I hated astronomy or loved it.”

“Hmm?” Luna took another sip from her hot chocolate. Monster. How was her tongue not burning off?

“It was a course I had no interest in. It had nothing new to offer. I had read millions of muggle books with the same information, and I can honestly say plenty of them were far more interesting. The only magical thing about astronomy were the moving pictures in the textbooks.

“But because it lacked all the magic and wonder I had been expecting, I felt… liberated. Here was the proof of a connection between muggles and wizards and witches, the same facts viewed through the same technical telescope lense. Though, honestly, muggles were making a lot more progress with the equipment. I just… I felt for the first time since I received my Hogwarts letter that, maybe, I could actually catch up to everyone else who grew up in the wizarding world. Before that it felt like I was chasing an unrealistic dream, one that I would chase nonetheless, but it felt like everything was set up to make me fail. And here was this completely mundane course that I might actually know _more_ about than all the purebloods and halfbloods who knew everything there was to know about magical history and potions and herbology.

“And then I become obsessed with the fear that everyone would just think I was good at astronomy because I was a muggleborn and there was no magic in the class. There was a point where I considered just not doing well in the class on purpose, but then I thought about my parents and I… I just realized I could never slack off in a class for such a stupid reason.”

Hermione laughed softly. “It was actually only in my seventh year, when Harry and Ron and I went on the run, that I realized that astronomy didn’t have to suddenly include magic for stars to be… magical. Stars will shine and shine and shine no matter what we do, and they continue to live on in our sky for thousands of years even after they die. Suddenly Voldemort seemed just a bit more manageable.”

Hermione turned her head to the other woman. She opened her mouth, hesitating. She stared into Luna’s eyes, not sure what she was searching for. A lot had happened since the beginning of the camping trip. She could talk to Luna about this. Hell, if anything, Luna could understand, if only a fraction more than Harry or Ron or Ginny could.

“Luna, sometimes I have this horrible guilt that no one in my family died because of the war. Like everyone’s right about me being a stupid mudblood who doesn’t belong and never will. Like nothing I do will ever be enough because I just don’t have the same _connection_ that purebloods and halfbloods do.” Hermione let out a mirthless chuckle.

“Ron and Ginny lost Fred, Neville lost his parents, and Harry lost Remus and Sirius, not to mention his parents.”

“I think, maybe you understand? Not being a muggleborn, but just…” Hermione trailed off, not sure that she wanted to finish the sentiment. Was it insensitive of her? She knew Luna suffered, but she had… mixed feelings about her dad.

“No, it’s okay, Hermione, I understand,” Luna affirmed, taking another sip from her hot cocoa.

“I’m really glad my dad didn’t die. He made it out alive, a little worse for wear, and not the same father I had before, but even then, he wasn’t perfect. Azkaban was not kind to him.” It honestly worried Hermione sometimes how calm and not present Luna could sound talking about very likely traumatising things. Was it just her way of dealing with it? Dissociating from it until the feelings couldn’t reach her anymore?

Hermione gently grabbed Luna’s free hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry that your father had to go through that. I know from Sirius how bad it can be.”

“Yeah,” Luna said, and her voice sounded wet. Hermione’s eyes widened. Luna’s hand squeezed back.

“I still think about what my father did during the war. I’m proud of him for printing those newspapers spreading the truth. I’m glad that he loved me enough to lie after that. I’m sad that he tried to turn you guys in. I understand why, it just makes me so sad, sometimes, thinking of what that did to you and Harry and Ron. You were all just kids.” Luna still sounded far off, but her jaw clenched tight once she finished and it was obvious she was upset.

Hermione smiled gingerly at her. “I think Ron and Harry and I have all… come to terms with what happened then. We understand why he did it. He was a father and his daughter was being held hostage and he would have done anything to get her back.” Hermione grimaced. “Did anything to get her back. You back. To safety.”

Maybe I would have done the same. I don’t know. But we trusted him. And he called the deatheaters… They would have killed us. _Killed us._ ”

“Yeah,” was all that seemed to come out of Luna’s mouth. And really, Hermione wasn’t asking for much else.

“I can put it behind me, but I just… don’t think I could ever…” Hermione couldn’t say it. She couldn’t finish her sentence-

“Forgive him,” Luna finished for her. And it wasn’t pretentious or angry or bland and unfeeling, all things that would have made Hermione terribly angry but knew Luna wouldn’t actually ever say it in that way. It was understanding and sympathetic and sad. And it didn’t ask Hermione to change her mind.

“I think… I want to believe he never would have done that if mom was still alive. He wouldn’t be so dependent on me. He wouldn’t be so desperate and frail. But I also think he was always a bit of a coward and a liar, and I’ll always still love him,” She said with the honesty of someone who loved someone unconditionally and could see their flaws for what they were. It was terrifying, the way Luna could think that through and mull it over about someone she cared about. Hermione didn’t think she had the fortitude to systematically disassemble Harry and Ron and honestly point out their flaws, much less her parents.

Her parents.

Hermione sighed. She left the silence unbroken while drinking her hot chocolate; it really was quite good. It was a bit too sweet, but Hermione realized she liked it like that. She was so glad she didn’t have Luna to make her coffee in the morning, or she’d be drinking like this everyday.

Though it’s not like she would complain, if such circumstances were to fall into her lap.

She stared at the sky, counting the stars until her glaring lack of train of thought was interrupted by Luna’s remark.

“Look, that’s the fox.” Hermione followed Luna’s pointed finger to a clump of stars, _Vulpecula,_ if her memory served her right.

Hermione’s eyes wandered off the constellation and pinned onto another. “And over there is the swan,” she said, gesturing with her hand. _Cygnus._ Latin really was such a pretty language.

Luna smiled encouragingly at her. “And there is the eagle.”

“And that’s the peacock.”

“The dolphin.”

And they continued like that until they were down to the big dipper and could name no more.

Both their mugs were drained of their contents, but Hermione couldn’t help clasping one hand around the container just as the other was intertwined with Luna’s.

“I haven’t talked to my parents since the war,” She admitted suddenly, but it didn’t feel sudden. It felt like Luna was expecting her to say it, or something of the sort, as she squeezed her hand gently.

She took a deep breath. “I obliviated them right before my seventh year, you know. I was so scared that the deatheaters would come after them… it felt like the only way. And then after the war… I hugged my friends and cried with them and comforted them, but it felt like I was slowly floating away from all the sadness. ‘I’m going to finally see my parents again,’ I thought. I was so happy that my parents were alive. And then I was at my parents’ doorstep and suddenly all my worries and fears were crashing down on me. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ ‘What if they go insane?’ ‘What if they hate me?’

“I entered the house and tried every memory-recovering spell I had researched. I tried every mind-healing spell I had researched. I tried every memory recollection spell I had researched.

"Nothing worked… and I… I just couldn’t handle talking to them as anyone other than their daughter. I ran away. I feel so awful." Hermione gnashed her lip in her teeth. Her eyes were on the star lit sky. She couldn't look at Luna. She could imagine how Luna was looking at her, but she didn't know if that was what she wanted to see. 

But maybe it was _exactly_ what she wanted.

Luna was facing her, hair falling over one eye, and Hermione's breath caught. It was exactly how she expected and nothing at all like it.

Luna's eyes were filled with a glistening softness, they said _you're not a monster it's okay to be scared I don't hate you_. And she didn't make excuses for Hermione. 

Her lips were drawn upward in an unspoken sympathy. Hermione knew without a doubt that Luna _understood._ Maybe it wasn't the same with her and her dad, but it was better than she could get with anyone else. And maybe she was a horrible person for thinking it, Ron and Harry were great friends, but- it just wasn't the _same_. Hermione was caught between mourning and scrabbling for hope. Her parents weren't dead, like Fred and Remus and Tonks and Sirius. Harry and Ron were still mourning, yeah, but Hermione didn't _deserve_ to mourn- she _couldn't_ mourn, _her parents weren't dead_. She didn't have the right when she should be dedicating every second of her free time to giving her parents back their memories. Maybe they were better off without her. She wasn't exactly a shining example of a daughter right now. She didn't deserve to have her parents back.

Slowly, as if not to spook Hermione, Luna tugged her closer, moving her head onto her shoulder. Hermione felt the first sob wrack through her. Luna wrapped her arms around Hermione, squeezing surprisingly hard for her slender frame. Hermione felt like wheezing and laughing and crying and wailing. She grasped at Luna’s shoulders.

“Shhh…” Luna pressed her nose into Hermione’s hair, her lips brushing lightly against her scalp.


	12. Chapter 12 - Luna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning ! This chapter has a scene where corpses are described in some(?) detail. Also a bit of angst (discussion of the witness of death)  
> Both are towards the end of the chapter.

Luna was cheerily following one of the north-western Nargle trails when she suddenly caught on to some very strange marks on the surrounding underbrush. Deep paw prints in the dirt, broken branches that were quite thick, and some very sad looking eviscerated berry bushes.

“Hermione, look! It looks like we found the undeniable traces of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack!”

Hermione walked over to the traces and looked around. “Are you sure these aren’t just the marks of wildlife?”

Luna shook her head. “None of the animals native to this region are tall enough or burly enough to leave these marks. The Nargles are giving me a good feeling about this!”

She confidently moved forward, Hermione sighing endearingly behind her. They followed the traces for quite some time before Luna finally caught sight of a large shadow in the near distance.

Luna slowly started speeding up, not wanting to lose sight of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. It didn’t matter right then that it didn’t necessarily look the right colour or moved the right way. It didn’t matter that it was far too tall and furry. It _didn’t matter_ , she had finally found it! She was going to fulfill her’s and her dad’s and her mom’s dream, and she was going to prove everyone wrong because damn it if there wasn’t a part of her that-

“L-luna, wait just a-!“

Luna stumbled, caught off balance as Hermione desperately grabbed her hand, falling forward and pulling Hermione down into the river right in front of them.

Luna gasped, choking on the water that was pouring in through her nose. Hermione’s hand was torn out of hers, and she was left floundering alone in the frigid water.

She clenched her eyes shut, waving her arms frantically as she tried to find the surface of the water. It was heavy _,_ and cold, and she felt it squeezing as she tried to escape the pressing hold. There was _nothing,_ not below or above or anywhere, and _this must have been what her mother felt like-_

Suddenly she felt arms take a bruising hold around her ribs, pulling her Merlin knew where, and the _familiar sensation of Hermione’s hair brushing against her face._

Luna took a stuttering breath when she was finally pulled out of the water and pushed roughly onto the dirt shore. She was coughing raggedly, trying to get the water out of her lungs. She felt a wet hand hit her back, not sure exactly how Hermione thought that would help, but not in the best state to ask her right then.

When she finally got her breathing under control she finally started to hear the words coming out of Hermione’s mouth.

“Luna! Luna? Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have jerked you like that, but oh gosh Luna, you were going to fall in, well I guess you ended up falling in anyway, but sometimes you’re such an airhead…” While Hermione’s words were a bit caustic, she sounded sincerely worried.

Luna suddenly felt Hermione’s hands on her cheeks. Her face was _very_ close.

“Thank you.” She finally croaked out. “I don’t know how to swim.”

Hermione face slowly warped to show her confusion. “Don’t you live right next to a river?”

“I used to know how to swim,” Luna amended. “I forgot how to, though, when I was nine.”

There was a long pause. Hermione’s eyes widened. She bit her lip.

“I’m going to cast a drying and warming charm on the both of us.” Hermione went through the motions and Luna immediately felt more comfortable.

Hermione dusted the debris off her clothes as she stood up. "I just thought it right to tell you that the animal we were following was a _bear_ , and approaching a bear in most circumstances is a _very_ bad idea."

Luna took Hermione's hand and pulled herself up. "Bears aren't native to this forest…"

Luna peered in the direction the bear went, likely scared off by the splash they made.

“We need to go catch that bear,” Luna decided.

“Luna, we just both got done getting thrashed in a river. _We_ need to take a minute to recover, alright?” Hermione glared at Luna, daring her to take a step towards the bear.

Thus, they spent some time sitting on the ground, mostly with Hermione adorably fussing over her.

Finally, Hermione lent Luna a hand to stand up.

“Luna, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all these alien species have appeared in this forest so close together.”

“You might be right. We should investigate while we have the opportunity. We’ll catch the bear and then see what we can do.” Luna was still a bit gloomy about the false Crumple-Horned Snorkack sighting.

They finally caught sight of the bear again. Now that they had a better vantage point, Luna could really take in its appearance. Its fur looked dirty and matted, and there were patches where fur had shed to reveal bare skin. The bear looked stressed.

Luna silently cast the sleeping spell at the lumbering creature, and they walked over. “If I cast a scent tracking spell, we should be able to figure out the general story of how this bear got here. Or we find out the bear magically appeared in a random spot in the forest. We should take the poor girl back to the tent first though.”

As they were levitating the bear back to the tent, Hermione asked about the scent tracking spell.

“Well, it works by locating traces of scent left on the brush and surrounding area. The spell makes it to light up, and places with more scent will be easier to find. I actually first learned it in my efforts to track the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, but the horn we had at home that I was going to use as my sample was too old and had lost all its scent. It was a very sad development, but it’s okay since the spell was useful in my other studies.”

“But it’s been weeks since the bear has likely entered the forest, if we go off the premise that all the animal appearances are linked. Won’t there be too much land to cover?”

“Hmm… Let’s take the brooms then. If we cast the spell from above the treeline, we should be able to see the trails fairly well.”

They carefully set up the bear in one of the larger containment crates, and then Luna took out the two brooms and the servicing kit.

“That’s right, didn’t I promise to teach you how to use this? I had forgotten about it when we found the monkey.” She motioned over for Hermione to sit next to her on the floor of the tent.

Once Hermione tentatively sat down, Luna took out the prunes. “You use these to cut off any split, broken or rebellious twigs and straws in the broom head. If you put it off long enough, the pieces will start to fall out as you fly. It’s considered very rude and gross.”

She trimmed at her own broom before passing the prunes to Hermione to try out on her broom. When it seemed that Hermione was having some trouble holding the prunes, Luna scooted over beside her and put her hand over Hermione’s, manoeuvring it into the correct position. Hermione’s rapidly blushing face was a sight that Luna very much appreciated.

Once Hermione finished pruning, Luna took out the sanding tool. “The wax on a broom often gets worn off because of high pressure winds or accidents, so splinters sometimes appear on the broom handle. It’s very dangerous since some brooms get a taste for blood and then take on vampiric qualities,” she explained as she showed Hermione how to find the splinters and best sand them down.

“And this is wax. Professional Quidditch players use some high-performance light-weight wax so that they can fly faster, but most people just wax their broom with the standard so that it’s comfortable to hold and to protect the poor thing from getting hurt. Ours is lavender-cocoa scented to keep away Nargles during flight. It makes them sleepy.”

Luna ended the improvised broom servicing class by explaining some of the less-used tools in the kit, and they finally boarded the brooms and took off.

Once they had flown out near where they first found the bear, Luna finally incanted the scent tracking spell.

Slowly, bright orange lines appeared among the trees, like a hoard of fireflies. There were multiple dim trails and a few brighter spots, likely where the bear had slept and made its den.

Luna continued tracing the paths with her eyes. There had to be a lead. Either there would be a single point where the trail started, or a nexus with many intersecting trails. Usually the scent of an animal in a stressful situation was very strong, and in an unknown environment it would tend to stick close to the starting point.

“Ah! Luna, do you see that?” Hermione drew her attention to a bright trail originating from near the highway.

“We should investigate.” Luna affirmed.

They disillusioned themselves before flying down to the area in case any cars came by. There, they were met with a truly awful sight.

The tree in front of them was bent inward, a windshield shattered against it. The truck itself was skewed, the cart turned on its side a whole 20 metres away. The doors to the cart were swung open, one hanging off a hinge.

Luna walked closer to the cargo hold, looking inside. It smelled faintly like an animal enclosure. Metal beams were cracked and bent at odd angles, wooden planks and crates scattered and broken on the floor. If she squinted, Luna could see dried blood splatter.

Luna turned away at the sound of something dropping nearby. She moved around the corner to find Hermione on the ground with her hand over her nose, shaking ever so slightly.

As Luna walked over to her, Hermione’s eyes shifted to her for a mere second before she had them pinned back on the driver’s shattered window. She slowly moved her hand from over her nose and placed it on the ground next to her, clenching and unclenching.

“The drivers are in there. Dead.”

Luna nodded slowly in recognition. She tentatively approached the window. Luna hovered, careful not to let her face gets scratched by the shards sticking out of the window pane.

Considering the scene in front of her, it made a lot of sense how Hermione had reacted.

There was a body- well, that was being generous, considering the only bodily aspect would be their vaguely human shape- in each of the front seats, layered in flakes of their own blood and sparkling with tiny pieces of glass. Their outer layer was shriveled, wrinkly, and considerably purplish-brown. Now up close, Luna was barraged by the consistent buzzing of flies and the gross stench of decay.

She moved back from the window to face Hermione, offering her hand. Hermione briefly reached for it before pulling back. “I think I’ll stay down here a few more minutes.” Luna nodded in understanding, sitting down next to her.

“It’s been at least a month.”

“Looks like it.” She coughed. “Did you see what was in the cargo?”

“Yeah. It seems they were transporting some animals, but they must have escaped. I didn’t see any in there, alive or otherwise.”

Hermione’s eyes widened as she drew her own conclusions. “Then this must be the source of all the animals we’ve caught so far. We should report this to the Office of Mysterious Appearances, when we fly the bear over.”

Luna hummed her agreement. She then took her wand out of its holster and carefully drew out a shape in the dirt.

“Luna, what are you doing?” came from her right. It sounded slightly offended.

Instead of a direct answer, Luna gave her this, “Did you know that when someone dies under the moon, there’s a chance that their spirit will mistake it for the Stairway of Death and fly towards it, becoming a star?”

She could feel Hermione’s warmth wash over her as she manoeuvred her head in effort to get a better look.

“And what does that have to do with… a frog?” The end of her question sounded unsure, perhaps doubting her assumption. But no, Hermione and her pretty little brain were perfectly correct.

“It’s a Moon Frog sigil. It’s meant to help guide their spirits back down. Human spirits tend to get lonely in the sky, but usually don’t know how to leave. Moon Frogs are known to be nocturnal creatures who only eat fireflies, leading to them getting the nickname “star catcher.” The most frequent cause of death and other injuries is catching the embers of a fire because they mistaken them for their prey. They’re also known to be bioluminescent!”

“… Aren’t Moon Frogs purportedly from the moon?”

“Yes, but the moon-dwelling subspecies’ sigil would be far less effective, considering earth-dwelling humans are far too different to moon-dwelling ones.”

Hermione sighs. “Does that mean there are fireflies on the moon too?”

“Of course! Except instead of fireflies they’re called Flareflies.” Luna, finally finished her sigil, tapped it once with her wand before standing up.

***

After dropping off the bear and informing the Office about the likely source of the animal appearances, they happened upon an icecream stand upon exiting the floo point. Luna was merrily enjoying her Crumple-Horned Berry Swirl, while Hermione was holding a much humbler chocolate-drizzled pecan caramel ice cream cone. The Swedish wizarding community seemed to be quite demure this time of day, so they decided to savour their treats at a nearby table.

Hermione looked to have something on her mind, so Luna decided to watch her discreetly until she opened up about her thoughts. And she ate her Crumple-Horned Berry Swirl. Enthusiastically.

“It’s been a while… since I’ve seen something that gruesome,” Hermione admitted.

“Me too.”

Hermione let out a slow breath through her mouth. “During my work in the DRCMC, I’ve had to report and investigate some pretty gory incidents, but even during the war I don’t think I had to… _experience_ anything as bad as that truck. _Merlin._ ” Her voice was very quiet.

“The muggle and wizarding world really do sometimes seem light years apart,” She finished, laughing. She rubbed her hands against her face, as if to wake herself up.

“Light years?” Luna asked.

“Ah, right, muggle term. It means the distance light travels in a year, specifically 9.46 trillion kilometres.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Mhm.”

“My mom was the one to teach me how to swim,” Luna started. Hermione jerked minutely in her seat. “She wasn’t especially good or bad at swimming, but she always made it fun.

“When I was nine, one of my mother’s experiment had gone very bad. According to the investigation, she had tried to apparate out of the room, but because of her head trauma, something went wrong. She ended up apparating into the river. She drowned.

“I… I was there. In the river. I was on the shore, drawing a sketch of a Plimpy. I… I watched her suffocate. I remember I accidentally tore the page in my journal out, trying to get to her. And I… I watched her drown.” Luna bit down on one of the waffle horns on her ice cream. It was delightfully crunchy. Merlin, she would hate if the waffles got soggy because of the ice cream.

Luna felt skin brush against hers, and looked up to see Hermione firmly grasp her hand in hers. Her hand was warm. And soft.

“And that’s why you forgot how to swim,” Hermione clarified softly.

“Yeah. That’s why I forgot how to swim.”

Their faces were now so close together that Luna noticed Hermione had a smear of ice cream on her nose.

Without another thought, Luna leaned forward and licked it clean.

“Wh-what was that about??” Hermione spluttered, head rearing back and hands twitching.

“You had a bit of ice cream on your nose.”

“Okay, but _Luna,_ you’re supposed to warn someone before you do something like that!”

“Ah, so you don’t mind me doing it again?”

Hermione’s lips moved open and closed, but it seemed she was very much at a loss for words.


	13. Chapter 13 - Hermione

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haahahahha so school killed me :''D  
> BUT! I have made it back!!
> 
> **Edit: Edited the chapter.

Hermione had asked Luna to help her draw an anatomical study of the Bowtruckle in one of her tanks, and was once again floored by her talent. It was one thing to see the finished artwork, and a whole other to see it _in progress._ Luna’s hand was graceful and light as she carved out the veins of the leaves.

So it was no surprise when Luna’s next words shocked her out of her trance.

“So we’ll be done in five days, huh. Time sure does pass by quicker than a Poisonous Duck.”

And Hermione got so caught up in the fact that there were only _five more days_ to say anything about why in Merlin’s beard a poisonous duck would be used as a speed marker.

***

Too many thoughts were passing through Hermione’s mind all at once.

Formalizing and proofreading her report. Preparing for whatever work she would be handed once she got back to the ministry. And what work would it be? Would she be going back to dealing with minor infractions now that they were done with the bill?

And what does this mean for her and Luna?

Of course, they would keep in touch. They _had_ to. Hermione still remembered Luna asking to be invited to any diplomatory trips to vampire covens. Well, Hermione didn’t know if she wanted Luna there for _diplomacy_ per say… but she could find an excuse, right?

And why would Hermione need an excuse! Surely it’s just perfectly normal to invite your friends to your workplace all the time…

Oh Merlin, she was already imagining the headache that Luna in the ministry could cause. Bad idea, bad idea.

Maybe just once?

Hermione groaned.

***

Hermione was terrified.

She, of all people, should know how easy it was to lose friendships. Did she even keep in contact with any of her muggle friends, cousins, neighbors once she started going to Hogwarts?

Sure, she saw them once in a while during summer break or winter holidays, but even that mostly stopped once she finished her sixth year.

She wasn’t satisfied with maybe sending Luna letters. She didn’t want to be just another birthday card Luna sent out. She didn’t want to be at another get together and have to say, “How are you, Luna? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

And maybe Luna would laugh, with that warm bright smile that made Hermione melt.

Or maybe it’ll be stiff and small, a polite quirk of the lips to spare her feelings.

Hermione’s heart clenched at the thought.

Luna wouldn’t do that? Right?

And then, maybe Hermione would make a joke about all the animals they found on the trip, and Luna’s eyebrows would furrow, and there’d be a pause. Luna would have already forgotten.

Then one day, Luna would walk into her office with a suave looking vampire lady, and they would be laughing behind their fingers. The vampire would be looking at Luna fondly. They would be holding hands.

Luna would smile at Hermione upon seeing her, but it would be nothing compared to the secret smile she shared with the vampire. She would be polite, maybe ask her what she was doing, but the vampire would do most of the talking. It would be about some vampire-ministry conflict that was under Hermione’s jurisdiction, but in that moment Hermione would wish that her position was anything else.

And if Hermione asked how they met, the vampire would say they met at a party. “Talking about blood types,” Luna would pitch in. Then they would chuckle again. As they left the office, Luna would wish her a merry Yule celebration.

It would be the middle of June.

***

Hermione was in love with Luna.

She wanted to see Luna every day, even after they finished the expedition.

She wanted to eat with her and cook together and clean up together.

She wanted to drink Luna’s coffee in the morning.

She wanted to sleep in the same bed and smell Luna’s hair and tangle their legs until it was just _warm warm warm._

And if she woke up or slept walk from night terrors, she selfishly wanted Luna to be the one there to comfort her.

Maybe they wouldn’t move in together right away. Hermione _did_ like her apartment, and she was sure Luna could never give up her home. Maybe they could find a way to compromise?

Though Hermione couldn’t lie to herself and say she wouldn’t pack all her stuff and move to Luna’s if she asked.

But even if they didn’t move in together, they could meet at the park for lunch. And send Howlers to each other. Maybe nice versions of Howlers? Those _had_ to exist. Hermione didn’t think she could honestly survive a day without hearing Luna’s voice.

And they could still spend the night at each others’ place.

And they could go on dates!

Oh Merlin this meant Hermione had to ask her out.

***

Did Luna like her back?

Maybe?

Luna was hard to read. But she did smile at Hermione a lot and laughed at her jokes. Hermione read that if people smile and laugh with you it means they’re attracted to you. Can book knowledge even apply to Luna? She hoped it did.

But maybe that was just because Luna saw her as a really good friend? Did she even like women? Was Hermione supposed to just ask her if she did? Was it rude of Hermione to assume she did or didn’t?

But Luna was just so pretty and sweet…

What if Luna just asked her out first? That would solve all her problems! Then she wouldn’t have to wonder whether Luna liked women or her or anything at all.

Not likely. Luna had literally been spending this whole expedition under the pressure of Hermione’s doubt and mockery. And well, Hermione knew better now and was doing her best not to make Luna feel dismissed, but she was also smart enough that the effects of her actions wouldn’t dissipate that fast. Luna was no doubt still wary, even if only subconsciously. Hermione knew what it was like to curl yourself up, ready for another attack even when the world seems like it’s finally done trying to beat you down. You can never really lose that tension in your shoulders.

And… what if Luna said no? What if Hermione was just imagining everything and Luna rejected her?

Hermione… didn’t know. She had never been put in the position where she had confessed and been rejected. Even the thought of it now made her feel a cold gaping sensation inside her heart.

It felt like standing at the edge of an open chasm and forcing yourself to jump.

The thought of getting rejected almost seemed like it would break her more than never knowing. Maybe they could just be friends? Then Hermione’s feelings wouldn’t get hurt. Everything would be fine. They could still hang out, right?

But Hermione knew, in the deepest corner of her mind, that she couldn’t do that. Not knowing would eat her up inside.

Tomorrow was the last day.

***

Luna stood beside Hermione as she cast her last diagnostic spells on the Bowtruckles and let them back into their trees. It was a bit funny now, thinking back on how this whole situation came about.

After making sure they were settling okay, they apparated back to the camping site and starting took down the tent. She still hadn’t improved in tent set-up, but Hermione was glad that at least taking down a tent was always easier than setting one up. They exchanged smiles and laughter as they stumbled at fumbled with the tent tarp and hooks.

Hermione’s heart stuttered.

“I guess this really does mark the end of the expedition,” Hermione said as Luna placed the packed tent into her backpack.

“Yep.”

“So, I still don’t believe in the Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” Hermione started off firmly. Luna didn’t seem to react, hands still moving confidently and without hurry. “… but that doesn’t mean none of the other creatures you’re searching for exist.”

“I… I really enjoyed going on this expedition with you. Far more than I expected,” Hermione admitted. She clenched and unclenched her first.

Luna leisurely finished and stood up, looking at her thoughtfully.

“Well, I was planning to look for the Blibbering Humdinger next. There have been far more sightings of it all over the world compared to the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

“The latest was in Melbourne, Australia.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. She slowly closed the distance between them.

“Do you want to come with?”

“Yes, yes-“ Hermione took a deep breath and wrung her hands. “Can I kiss you?”

Luna’s lips pulled into a smile. She looked absolutely regal. “I’d be delighted.”

So Hermione did. She pressed her lips to Luna’s soft, soft mouth and drew her arms up to her neck. She was happy, so, so happy.

After a very long moment, they separated. Hermione was blushing and smiling so hard, and she found that she didn’t mind at all. Her face was still very close to Luna’s and her arms held firm over her shoulders. Luna’s warm breath brushed against her skin. “Luna, I- I’m terribly and irrevocably smitten with you.”

And Luna smiled and responded so casually. "I really like you too, Hermione."

She leaned forward to nuzzle her nose. "You do know that I'm still going to continue my Crumple-Horned Snorkack expeditions. I'll find it."

Hermione drew her fingers through Luna's hair, grinning. She was a wondrous and tenacious being and a gift to the world, and especially to her. "We'll see. With you, I'll always have proof of the impossible."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo....  
> I do have some ideas for an epilogue. It might take a while because of the aforementioned school oof, but if you're interested I would love to know!
> 
> I also have two more H/L WIPs underway atm, one is more of a short ~10k ficlet which I'll hopefully get done in a month or so depending on how my time management skills work 'owo The other one's gonna be another long haul '''owo
> 
> ty for all the kudos and comments <3
> 
> YEET HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE FIC


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